In 2003-2004, the Education Committee continued and expanded its activities, focusing on the 2000 APS Strategic Plan Goal, "To promote awareness, understanding, and education in physiology at all levels." Highlights of some of the major activities are outlined here.

Graduate Student Education

At the graduate level, the Committee's activities are currently focused on improving the overall graduate education of physiology trainees. Two new initiatives were launched this year toward this end.

Listing of Professional Skills: A working group representing the Education Committee, Career Opportunities in Physiology Committee, Women in Physiology Committee, and Association of Chairs of Departments of Physiology, developed a listing of the professional skills that should be developed by trainees at the graduate, postdoctoral, and early career levels. The group was co-chaired by Robert Carroll (for APS) and William H. Dantzler (for ACDP), and included Francis L. Belloni (Careers Committee), Vernon S. Bishop (ACDP), Carole M. Liedtke (Women in Physiology Committee), and William S. Spielman (ACDP). The APS and ACDP membership provided feedback on the draft listing and it was approved by both the APS Council and the ACDP at their November and December 2003 meetings, respectively.

The APS/ACDP List of Professional Skills for Physiologists and Trainees is available at the APS website as a downloadable file (http://www.the-aps.org/education/skills.htm). In the coming year, the List will be available as a print document and as an html document with extensive links to some of the nearly 5,000 career resources available at the APS Career Web.

Trainee Member Listserv: A listserv for student members of the APS was developed in May 2003. The listserv is coordinated by the Education Office and provides monthly updates on awards, fellowships, meetings, and job opportunities for student members of the APS. For additional information, contact the APS Education Officer, Marsha Matyas (mmatyas@the-aps.org).

Medical Physiology Education

The Committee's focus for medical physiology is on providing resources and information to both improve and enrich medical physiology education. Resources focus on both content and teaching methods.

APS Archive of Teaching Resources: In its first full year of operation, the Archive (http://www.apsarchive.org), APS' free digital library of teaching resources, has grown in both size and diversity of resources. About 60% of the Archives' 380+ resources are appropriate for use at the graduate and professional school levels. These resources include not only fully catalogued and searchable Advances in Physiology Education articles (N=197) but also graphics, simulations, webs, PowerPoint presentations, laboratory activities, and other resources contributed by individual physiology educators. They also include resources from the Human Anatomy and Physiology Society (HAPS), the APS Archive's first partnering organization. The use of the Archive continues to grow; it now averages more than 62,000 "hits" (pages accessed) per month by an average of about 1,000 users per month.  In addition, the number of persons electing to download teaching resources from the Archive has more than tripled in one year, from 730 users to 2,100 users.

Additional submissions to the Archive are being sought via exhibits, workshops, poster presentations, email listservs, and one-on-one contact. In the past year, the Archive has been promoted by the Education Office staff through workshops and/or exhibits at six education meetings in the US and Canada, as well as through the regular scientific meeting exhibits of the Marketing Department. The Archive continues to participate as a founding partner of the AAAS' BiosciEd Net (BEN) partnership which now has more than 20 partnering societies and projects (see http://www.biosciednet.org). The Archive receives partial support from a grant from the National Science Foundation.

EB 2004 Refresher Courses: The 2004 Refresher Courses on Cellular Homeostasis were organized by Michael Romero (morning session) and Jeffrey Freedman (afternoon workshop). The morning session was extremely well attended, attracting over 250 attendees, with most staying for the entire session. The majority of those attending were faculty at medical schools or colleges/universities, as well as a large number of postdoctoral fellows and graduate students. Nearly ¾ of those providing feedback indicated that cellular homeostasis was not their primary area of specialization. As this is the target group for the Refresher Course, the Committee is pleased that the courses continue to draw the participants for whom they were designed. Over half of the attendees completed a feedback form, giving the program an average rating of 4.3 on a 5 point scale. An afternoon workshop was held to expand on the topic of the morning session, providing opportunities for participants to try three "mini-labs" for teaching about the membrane potential in a cell physiology course. These mini-labs provide students with hands on experience with certain basic physiological phenomena, reinforce the concepts presented in lectures, and introduce certain physiological methods and techniques.

Use of Animals in Medical Education: At Council's direction, the Education Committee, in conjunction with the ACE Committee, will work to develop a report and policy statement on the educational value of animal laboratories. This report will describe how the use of laboratories, specifically including animal laboratories, provides a unique and effective educational experience for physiology education at all levels. There is a significant body of educational research supporting participatory learning, and institutions that do use animals have collected and are willing to share student comments evaluating the proper use of animals.

Undergraduate Physiology Education

At the undergraduate level, Committee activities encourage both excellence in undergraduate education and encouragement and support for student participation in research.

New EB Undergraduate Poster Session: The Education Committee sponsored a new EB poster session for undergraduate students. The Session, held on Sunday afternoon, allows many of the undergraduates who are not able to stay for the entire EB meeting to present their posters. Of the 88 undergraduates submitting abstracts as first authors, 75 displayed at the session. Refreshments were provided by APS. Approximately 100 APS members came to see the posters and talk with the students. The Committee plans to hold this event annually at EB.

David Bruce Awards: EB 2004 was also the first year for selection of the David S. Bruce Awards for Excellence in Undergraduate Research. The Awards recognize excellence in undergraduate research and honors David S. Bruce (1939-2000) who served as Chair of the APS Teaching Section and as a professor of physiology at Wheaton College from 1978-2000. Bruce was a dedicated physiology educator who played active roles in both the APS and the Society for Integrative & Comparative Biology. As an undergraduate educator at Wheaton College, Bruce had a particular interest in engaging undergraduate students in scientific research. He not only encouraged and supported his students in participating in research, but also regularly brought undergraduate students to the Experimental Biology meeting to present their research findings. In 2000, Bruce died at the age of 61 of complications following a kidney transplant. The David Bruce Award honors Bruce's commitment to promoting undergraduate involvement in research, in the APS annual meeting, and, ultimately, in research careers.

A total of 19 applications were received for this first year. The Committee selected 12 finalists based on the abstract and a one-page letter submitted by the undergraduate students. The 12 finalists each made oral presentations with their posters to a group of Committee members during the EB meeting. Four awardees were selected. The Committee members participating noted that all the finalists were very competitive and deserving of the award based on the quality of the work. Robert Carroll, Chair of the Education Committee, and Janet Bruce presented certificates to the eight finalists and certificates and $500 checks to the four awardees during an award presentation held during the APS Undergraduate Research Poster session. Based on the response to that special undergraduate poster session and with more time to announce the award, the Committee is looking forward to a much larger number of applications for the 2005 David Bruce Award.

Explorations in Biomedicine 2003 Retreat: In September 2003, a Fall Retreat, "Weeding, Cultivating, and Replanting: Tools for Growing a Student-Centered Science Curriculum," was held at Little Big Horn College in Crow Agency, MT. The retreat focused on resources and strategies for transforming the curriculum to be more student-centered, that is, placing the student at the center of teaching and learning. Participants explored how to transform "cookbook" lessons and labs into ones in which students develop their own hypotheses and methods and actively explore the targeted concepts. They also explored how to make their lessons appeal to those with a wide variety of learning styles and from different cultures. Participants used tools to not only find outstanding resources on the Web but also to effectively integrate them into lessons so they enhance learning. Specifically, the retreat:

• provided tools that can be used by individuals or groups to review and revise their curricular materials;

• offered opportunities to practice using these tools in a collaborative group setting; and

• provided tools to help teachers integrate effective Internet activities in their lessons.

The workshop was led by APS Education Committee members Walter Ward and Thomas Pressley along with past Summer Research Teachers Margaret Shain and Sheree Watson. Results of the retreat evaluation were very positive. Participants were asked on both the entry and exit surveys to rate their own understanding of topics that were the focus of the Retreat. Self-ratings increased significantly for participants� understanding of:

• current recommended science teaching practices (p<.001);

• identifying activities that do and do not contribute to a student-centered curriculum (p<.05); and

• recognizing and making the most of students� cultures and backgrounds (p<.01).

Collaboration with HAPS: The APS participates in and supports the annual meeting of the Human Anatomy and Physiology Society (HAPS), an association of physiology educators, primarily from community and four-year colleges by sponsoring an exhibit, conducting workshops, and sponsoring a keynote research update speaker. At the June 2004 HAPS meeting in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, Paul Kubes, Professor, Departments of Physiology & Biophysics and Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Calgary gave an Update Seminar entitled, "The Inflammatory Response." Kubes' presentation was very well-received by the HAPS participants. APS staff members Marsha Matyas and Melinda Lowy staffed the APS exhibit and presented the following workshops on creating a student-centered curriculum and using the APS Archive of Teaching Resources.

K-12 Science Education

At the pre-college level, the APS seeks to improve science education, stimulate student interest in biomedical research careers, and promote understanding of the use of animals in research.

APS Summer Research Program for Teachers: The Summer Research Program continues to work with teachers from across the nation:

• engaging them in biomedical research;

• building connections at the local level between teachers, students, and researchers;

• improving the teaching methods and curricular materials used by the teachers; and

• deepening the understanding of both teachers and students of how biomedical research is done and how animals are used in research.

The program, now in its 14th year, has funding from three NIH institutes: NCRR, NIGMS, and NIDDK, in addition to the support provided by the APS. In addition, an APS member, George Tempel, at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC), coordinates the participation of two to four teachers annually in the program. These teachers are supported by a grant to MUSC from the National Science Foundation. This diversity of funding sources both serves as an indicator of the success of the program and contributes to its longevity. In 2004, the program is supporting 25 teachers from 12 states in an intensive, yearlong professional development program.

Member support for this program continues to be strong, with many members volunteering to host teachers in their laboratories, providing the needed lab materials and supplies for each teacher�s research and, frequently, providing part of the stipend and travel costs for the teacher. For example, nearly 60% (N=10) of the APS members who hosted the 17 teachers in their labs last summer contributed not only the lab materials and supplies that the teachers needed, but also are contributed an average of $1,320 ($13,200 total) toward their stipends and/or EB travel. For 2004, nearly 55% (N=14) of the members who will host 26 teachers in their labs this summer will contribute an average about $1,820 ($25,500 total) toward stipends and/or EB travel.

In 2002, APS received three additional years of funding from the NCRR-SEPA program to continue and expand the program, with a special focus on the development of local site models in physiology departments, similar to the collaboration with MUSC described above. Initially, this development and dissemination project will work with APS members Duanne Proppe and Walter Ward at UTHSC-San Antonio and C. Subah Packer at Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis, IN. Program activities will include summer research fellowships for teachers, training and planning meetings for Frontiers Local Site Teams, and professional development workshops for local teachers that focus on integrating inquiry-based teaching, equity strategies, and effective integration of Internet technology in the life sciences classroom.

EB Workshop for Teachers and Students: Education Committee member Thomas Pressley coordinated the 2004 APS Workshop for High School Teachers and Students. DC-area teachers and their students attended the workshop along with APS members, 2003 Frontiers and Explorations Research Teachers (RTs), graduate students, other awardees, and APS staff for an approximate total of 150 people. Greg Florant of Colorado State University presented his research on the physiology of hibernating marmots. He was followed by a Careers Panel that included APS members Rudy Ortiz, Gregory Florant, and Jennifer Pluznick. Margaret Shain (Past Research Teacher) led the career panel discussion. Twenty APS members served as tour guides during lunch where they took teachers and students through the exhibits and posters and shared a box lunch while discussing physiology careers.

The afternoon student session was lead by George Ordway and a number of APS member volunteers. Students used the �Elvis Experiments� from the APS "Physiology of Fitness" unit to learn about factors affecting flow of liquids through tubing (radius, length, viscosity).  While students were conducting their experiments, their teachers (as well as the 2003 Research Teachers) participated in a workshop focusing on nutrition, diabetes, and the sense of taste. Diane Ford (2003 Explorations Research Teacher) modeled her "Dietary Decisions" lab, which uses nutrition labels to create a menu for a diabetic and non-diabetic persons. Also Marsha Matyas and Melissa Gildehaus (2004 Frontiers Research Teacher) presented the Project WISE Taste Lab, an exploration of the anatomy and physiology of the sense of taste. As in the past, feedback from both teachers and students was very positive and students were especially excited to meet physiologists one-on-one.

International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) Awards: The Intel ISEF brings together over 1,200 students from 41 nations to compete for scholarships, tuition grants, internships, scientific field trips and the grand prize: a trip to attend the Nobel Prize Ceremonies in Stockholm, Sweden. The 55th Annual International Science and Engineering Fair was held in Portland, OR in May 2004. Special Awards were given by 93 scientific, professional, industrial, educational, and governmental organizations in the form of scholarships, tuition grants, summer internships, scientific field trips, and equipment grants.  The APS participates as a Special Awards Sponsor for ISEF, recognizing outstanding high school research projects in the physiological sciences, including cellular physiology, animal physiology, and neurophysiology.  Four students received cash awards ($1,000 First Prize, $500 Second, Third, Fourth Place), T-shirts, and a year's subscription to NIPS and The Physiologist. APS is one of only seven biomedical research organizations that give awards to students from among 63 organizations making special awards.

Summary and Conclusions

The Education Committee is meeting the objectives laid out in the 2000 Strategic Plan, with significant activities supporting each of the Plan's objectives. I would like to thank Council for their support. Our activities would be impossible without the expert leadership of Marsha Matyas and her staff in the APS Education Office. Many members of Council interact with the Higher Education Coordinator Melinda Lowy, as she directs programs related to undergraduate, graduate, and medical education. Kathleen Kelly manages the Education Committee outreach activities in the K-12 environment, which increase the vitality and perception of physiology. Brooke Bruthers coordinates all meetings, travel, and exhibits for all Education programs.

I especially thank the Education Committee and the APS members who have helped with the many projects, and invite anyone with an interest in physiology education to contact me and to join the fun. 

Rob Carroll, Chair 

Council Actions

• Council accepted the report of the Education Committee.

• Council authorized $60,000 for summer research fellowships for high school and middle school science teachers for 2005.