Sharing Anatomy With Elementary Students Via Two‐way Videoconferencing

Abstract

Sharing human anatomy with elementary age children is often a difficult task to undertake. Logistics of bringing students to your campus, and then the ethics of bringing young students into human anatomy facilities often prohibit this age group from inclusion in outreach programs. This study shows how using live, two‐way videoconferencing technology is an effective solution to this problem, and it can reach much larger audiences of children than traditional anatomy outreach programs. A Tandberg II Intern module was used to transmit video images from the human gross anatomy laboratory at the University of North Texas Health Science Center, Department of Cell Biology and Genetics, to 54 elementary schools across the state of Texas. Approximately 3000 students watched the program on the cardiopulmonary system, and saw demonstrations on healthy and diseased human heart and lung tissue. Four schools were interactive and students could ask questions directly to the moderator. Models and skeletons were used to show relationships of the heart and lung in the human body, and these were related to state of Texas’ science standards on how systems work together. Teacher feedback was very positive and plans are already being made for future presentations. In conclusion, use of live, two‐way videoconferencing is a very efficient method of sharing human anatomy to elementary students for science outreach programs.