Pleasant View Elementary (Zionsville, Ind.) students learn about the human body during PhUn Week.
Each week on the I Spy Physiology blog, we present examples of physiology in everyday life. This week, the American Physiological Society (APS) is sponsoring an annual event called Physiology Understanding (PhUn) Week. This is the time when scientists and educators take to the streets to spread the word about physiology. APS members have worked with science teachers across the country to plan activities that help explain what physiology is and how it affects the lives of their students.
APS member Mikaela Drake, an assistant professor of health sciences at Butler University in Indiana, participated in her first PhUn Week as a graduate student. “I quickly found myself naturally falling into the role of an educator that day. It was a new sense of satisfaction I hadn’t experienced before, but I knew I wanted more! Not only did my first PhUn Week experience help to inspire those sixth-grade students, unbeknownst to me, it also inspired my future career track,” she said.
Mikaela discusses the experiments—including working with 3D anatomy puzzles and a red blood cell activity—and individuals who made PhUn Week so exciting for her as a student and now as a faculty member on the PhUn Week blog.