Author Archives: Jessica Taylor

Build community partnerships through PhUn Week: It Works

I became aware of PhUn Week during my time as the 2010-2011 APS K-12 Minority Outreach Fellow.  A requirement of the fellowship was to conduct PhUn Week activities in at least one classroom.  The goal was to take a scientist out of the lab and place them in a local school and it worked.  That year, over 1,100 K-12 students in six schools in San Antonio, TX were engaged in science outreach and it helped me establish seven years of partnerships with K-12 educators, schools, and community members.

 

 Types of university-community partnerships: What can you handle?

The types of partnerships you can establish vary.  PhUn Week activities are flexible and adaptable to fit a single one-time project or be developed into long-term, on-going continuum of projects.  Before choosing the type of partnership, take time to get to know your potential partner(s) – teachers, schools, administrators, or organizations.  Talk openly and listen carefully. Learn about each other.  Get a sense about the school district, the population they serve, demographics, barriers, culture, and purpose for the visit.  This process takes time and patience.  Keeping your long-term commitments in mind, realize you are determining fit, the level of partnership, and type of relationship you will establish:  high-level commitment + needs trust; low commitment + loose connection.

Consider your involvement carefully before you make a commitment.  PhUn Week activities are adjusted to fit various needs from a one-hour classroom visit or adapted to a gymnasium with 100 fifth-graders.  This is also a time to consider resources needed (How many volunteers? What supplies?).  Set realistic timelines, roles, responsibilities, and expectations.  Don’t be afraid to start small.  Small is good.  A small start is better than no start.

As the community partnership builds, share the decision-making process.  Find common goals and agree on activities that meet shared missions or outcomes.  For some partnerships, I have made science presentations and conducted hands-on activities in a 45-minute to a bilingual classroom (English/Spanish) during Career Day.  At other occasions, I engaged an entire grade level (K-5th and special needs classes) at a time in a gymnasium with group activities (over 500 students in one day).  At the middle school level, spending two full days (due to block schedules) in science classrooms where students rotated through five stations – then repeated the process for each class period till the students in an entire grade level participated.  PhUn week works well to create community partnerships and we have successfully adapted to various events. 

 

Sustaining and deepening university-community partnerships

Planning PhUn Week activities is just the beginning.  For projects where you wish to establish long-term relations, the partnerships must be sustained and deepened.  In this case, it is important for partners to work together, celebrate, and reflect on the experience.  Work with the K-12 teachers and school to set clear roles and expectations. Rather than take on the huge burden of doing PhUn Week activities alone, work together.  Be clear about what you can and cannot do.  Even when you do the planning, unforeseen events happen.  When volunteers don’t show up and you have to run 5 stations on your own, don’t panic.  Invite teachers, mature students, or others to step in help.  Ask for help.  By working together, relationships deepen.

Partnerships will improve when you take the time to celebrate and reflect on the experience.  Your work is not done when PhUn week is over.  The time after the event is a time to celebrate what was accomplished.  Partners put in lots of time and resources into the event.  Don’t minimize the impact of the event, rather celebrate the planning and execution of the activities.  Were your goals achieved?  Reflect and get feedback on the things that went well and did not.  Take note of lessons learned from both partners.  Some feedback and reflection is done immediately after the event; however you may need time for other feedback to be collected (demographics, volunteer hours, resources used, costs, etc.).  To this day, my favorite feedback about PhUn Week experience is when students complete a pre-visit and post-visit “Draw-A-Scientist” activity (APS, e-DAS Handout).  It may take a few days to collect student’s drawings and to visit with the teacher.

Recently, we tailored PhUn Week activities to university-community partnership that addressed social issues.  Social accountability and community engagement are major directives of the School of Osteopathic Medicine at the University of Incarnate Word and are integrated into the mission statement, strategic plan, and curriculum.  We took PhUn week activities outside the walls of the university and into the heart of the community. Over 3,000 people from across the city took part in the 2016 Science Fiesta in downtown San Antonio.  PhUn week activities were modified to a large, public, city-wide, free event where people of all ages to were invited to engage in hands-on science activities (PhUn Week style) and included an opportunity to “Meet a Scientist” and “Meet a Clinician.”  In this case, PhUn week helped us address social justice issues, engage vulnerable populations, and be positioned to help promote science, health, and education during the Science Fiesta.

 

Additional information about PhUn Week projects can be found at www.LifeSciTRC.org

Bibliography

American Physiological Society, 2007. PhUn Week 2006: Promoting the Understanding of Physiology in K-12 Classrooms. Physiologist, April, 50(2), pp. 62-63.

Jacobson, D. L., 2010. A new agenda for education partnerships stakeholder learning collaboratives. Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, 25 March.Volume 33.

Kerrigan, s., Reitenauer, V. & Arevalo-Meier, N., 2015. Enacting True Partnerships within Community-Based Learning: Faculty and Community Partners Reflect on the Challenges of Engagement. Metropolitan Universities, 26(3), pp. 63-78.

National Education Association Education Policy and Practice Department, 2008. Center for Great Public Schools. [Online]
Available at: http://www.nea.org/assets/docs/PB11_ParentInvolvement08.pdf
[Accessed 22 June 2017].

US Department of Education, n.d. Science, Technology, Engineering and Math: Education for Global Leadership. [Online]
Available at: https://www.ed.gov/stem
[Accessed 22 June 2017].

Zerhouni, E., 2008. NIH Director Newsletter. [Online]
Available at: http://www.nih.gov/about/director/newsletter/January2008.him
[Accessed 20 July 2014].

 

  Dr. Jessica M. Ibarra, PhD is an Assistant Professor of Clinical and Applied Science Education and a founding faculty member in the School of Osteopathic Medicine at the University of the Incarnate Word (UIW) in San Antonio, TX.  Dr. Ibarra teaches gross anatomy and neuroanatomy.  Dr. Ibarra began her undergraduate studies at Palo Alto College and earned an Associate of Science in Biology degree.  She completed her Bachelor of Science in Biology at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Dr. Ibarra earned her doctorate degree in Cellular and Structural Biology from the UT Health San Antonio where she also attended dental school and completed a postdoctoral fellowship. As a scientist, she conducted studies to explore the role of key inflammatory factors involved in chronic diseases such as heart failure, arthritis, and diabetes.  When Dr. Ibarra is not teaching, she inspires students to be curious about science with visits to local schools.  She has participated in science outreach through the APS Physiology Understanding Week, at the Science Fiesta, and the USA Science Engineering Festival in Washington, DC.  Dr. Ibarra’s passion for teaching and service translates into facilitating learning in the next generation scientists and physicians. She is active in APS as a member of the Porter Physiology and Minority Affairs Committee, Secretary of the History of Physiology Interest Group, a PECOP Fellow and a LifeSciTRC Vision and Change Fellow.
An Introduction to Physiology Understanding (PhUn) Week

What is PhUn Week?

PhUn Week is a nationwide outreach program building connections between scientists and their local schools. PhUn Week is distinctive for two reasons:

  • It fosters grassroots partnerships between biomedical researchers and K-12 teachers; and
  • It is carried out into classrooms by “citizen scientists” composed of a senior researcher along with his or her undergraduate, graduate, or postdoctoral students.

Individual physiologists, physiology departments, and regional chapters of the APS all coordinate PhUn Week events and activities during the first full week of November, ranging from single classroom visits to large-scale local events at schools, universities and museums.

 

The goals of PhUn Week are to:

  • Increase student interest in and understanding of physiology in their lives.
  • Increase teacher recognition of physiology in their standards-based science curriculum.
  • Introduce students to physiology as a possible career.
  • Involve more physiologists in outreach to the students and teachers in their communities.

How Does the PhUn Week Community Interact?

  • LifeSciTRC: PhUn Week Community members submit items in a number of formats including sample activities, posters that have been presented during the EB PhUn Week Poster Session, and journal articles.  These items are searchable using keywords: PhUn Week, K-12 Outreach, and EB Poster Session.
  • EB PhUn Week Poster Session: The session  is a highly interactive poster and networking session, highlighting outreach efforts by diverse physiologists working with preschool through 12th grade students and their teachers. Attendees meet PhUn week participants, learn details about the varied PhUn week activities held the previous year, ask questions, share best practices, and get advice on their own future PhUn week activities.
  • Blog: We hope this blog allows community members to reach a broader community of physiologists and teachers to share strategies for carrying out PhUn Week events and foster partnerships between schools/teachers and researchers.

How can I participate?

The PhUn Week website offers on-demand information and supporting materials. It provides numerous resources for physiologists to use in planning their PhUn week events, curricular materials for teachers to use in their classroom to expand on the physiologist’s visit, and career planning materials for guidance counselors and teachers to use in guiding future physiologists into the field.

 

PhUn Week History

The program started in 2005 with a field test in a limited number of sites and has grown steadily since. Formative goals for the first 10 years of the program included program growth (sites, participants, and leaders), diversification of program models, and development of a community of practice of physiologists and trainees involved in outreach. Eleven years of member-provided data indicates that the formative goals are being met.  Over 100,000 K-12 students have been reached during the last decade as an increasing pool of physiologists took part in a growing number of events including a number of international events.  The number and types of PhUn Week events have steadily increased as a community of practice has formed to support the program. Future program goals include targeting regional areas for PhUn Week participation, establishing research collaborations to further explore program impacts on students and teachers, and providing on-demand training for physiologists.

 

Margaret Shain Stieben is the Program Manager for K-12 Education Programs at the American Phys­i­o­log­i­cal Soci­ety. Her main responsibilities include developing, organizing, and implementing education projects aimed at promoting professional development opportunities for middle and high school science teachers and outreach opportunities among physiologists and K-12 teachers across the nation. This includes the Frontiers in Physiology Research Fellowship Program, PhUn Week, Local Science Fair Awards, APS Special Awards at the International Science and Engineering Fair and promoting career development in K-12 classrooms. She works extensively with both the Education and Careers Opportunity Committees on these projects and regularly attends meetings and conferences to give presentations about these programs.