The Education Committee supports a wide variety of projects and programs to promote physiology education at all educational levels. Current efforts are centered on recruiting materials to populate the APS Archive of Teaching Resources. This web-based searchable Archive houses materials to support instruction in the graduate, medical, undergraduate, and K-12 settings. This project is part of the BiosciEd Net (BEN) collaborative, a national digital library sponsored by the NSF. Interested faculty should visit the web site, http://www.apsarchive.org to access materials and to submit objects to the Archive. Also, members should be aware that the APS Teaching Career Enhancement Award can be used to develop and refine materials that may be submitted to the Archive.

The Medical Physiology Learning Objectives, a collaborative project by the APS and the Association of Chairs of Departments of Physiology (ACDP), was published and disseminated in late spring of 2002. Copies were sent to all ACDP members, and the publication is available free at the APS website. Departments may request up to 15 copies of the book for no charge; additional copies are available for $3 per copy.

At the undergraduate level, Dee Silverthorn is coordinating "Integrative Themes in Physiology" (ITIP), a NSF-funded program to enhance undergraduate physiology teaching. The program is developing and field-testing modules emphasizing common themes in physiology and determining how to effectively communicate them within an undergraduate course. The first module, "Gradients and Conductance," has been field-tested and is being finalized for publication both in print and on the APS web site. This is a collaborative program between the Human Anatomy and Physiology Society (HAPS), the APS Teaching of Physiology Section, the APS Education Committee, the APS Education Office, and the APS journal Advances in Physiology Education.

APS also sponsors workshops, an exhibit, and a keynote research update speaker at the annual HAPS meeting. This year's speaker was Barbara A. Horwitz, APS President. In addition to her keynote talk, Horwitz convened a discussion group on how APS can work with undergraduate faculty to encourage student interest in physiology careers.  

The APS has earned national recognition for the quality of the K-12 Science Education programs. This past year, programs included:

• APS Summer Research Program for Teachers. The Summer Research Program continues to work with teachers from across the nation, engaging them in biomedical research and building connections at the local level between teachers, students, and researchers. This program is now in its 11th year, with continuation funding being received in Fall 2000 from three NIH institutes: NCRR (three years), NIGMS (five years), and NIDDK (five years). In these new grants, the APS will also be developing models to help teachers learn how to integrate web technology in their classrooms; therefore, many more innovative resources will be added to the APS web site. Member support for this program continues to be strong, with many members volunteering to host teachers in their laboratories and to provide the needed lab materials and supplies for their research. In February 2002, the Education Committee, along with several past Summer Research Teachers, selected 14 teachers to participate in the summer 2002 program. Most of the teachers' research hosts provided some in-kind support for their stipend and/or travel. For a listing of those teachers selected for the program, see the August 2002 issue of The Physiologist (http://www.the-aps.org/publications/journals/tphys/images/tphys8x02.pdf).

• EB 2002 Workshop for Teachers and Students. This year�s workshop was on physiological genomics, organized by Jeff Osborne, with Susan Glueck, deputy editor of Physiological Genomics, as the keynote speaker. More than 100 New Orleans high school teachers and students attended.

• Local Outreach Team Workshops. With the continued funding mentioned above, additional funds are now available for APS members who want to hold workshops for middle and high school teachers in their local communities. The APS currently has 27 Local Outreach Teams (LOTs) (researchers and teachers working together to hold workshops). In addition, due to the enthusiastic work over the past two years, LOTs have developed six new workshop units on topics such as cell structure and function, physiology of exercise, renal physiology, gastrointestinal physiology, structure and function of the eye, and levers in the human body. These units are being field-tested and will be available in the coming year on the APS web site.

• Explorations in Biomedicine. The APS� long-time collaboration with the American Indian Research Opportunities consortium (Montana State University and the Tribal Colleges of Montana) will continue for five more years, thanks to a continuation grant from the NIGMS. Explorations will continue to provide opportunities for Montana teachers to participate in the Summer Research Program and for undergraduate students to attend the Experimental Biology meetings. In May, Rob Carroll, Joe Dan Coulter, and Subah Packer participated in a retreat that brought together 25 Tribal College faculty and middle and high school teachers from reservations across Montana to learn about both best practices in teaching and the latest in physiology research, especially on issues of particular interest to Native Americans and on the use of Internet resources in teaching.

• My Health, My World. The APS is continuing its successful collaboration with Baylor College of Medicine's elementary science and health education program.

• APS Awards at the International Science and Engineering Fair. George Ordway coordinated the review and award to the best physiology projects at the 2002 International Science and Engineering Fair in May 2002. For more information on these awards and a listing of the award winners and their projects, see the August 2002 issue of The Physiologist (http://www.the-aps.org/publications/journals/tphys/images/tphys8x02.pdf).

• Refresher Course at EB meeting. The "Neurophysiol-ogy Refresher Course" at EB 2002 was organized by Cheryl Heesch and Tom Cunningham, and included both molecular and integrative presentations. The morning session was followed by an afternoon workshop on problem-based learning. Both sessions received very positive ratings. For 2003, the theme will be skeletal, smooth and cardiac muscle, and the afternoon session will be a laboratory session on human exercise. 

The success of the APS educational programs depends on the continuing involvement of the APS members. The Committee offers a sincere thanks to those physiologists who have contributed to the APS educational efforts over the past year and invites anyone interested in the education committee programs to contact Rob Carroll (carrollr@mail.ecu.edu) or Marsha Matyas (mmatyas@the-aps.org) for more information. 

Rob Carroll, Chair 

Council Actions

• Council accepted the report of the Education Committee.

• Council approved the requested funds for the continuation of the summer research fellowship program.