Shelbie Harris

News Editor

If you’re enrolled in anatomy and physiology (A&P) courses at Idaho State University now, or within the next two years, it may be exciting to learn the classrooms used for labs located within the Gale Life Science building are entering the second phase of renovations.

Architects and designers will scheme up plans and specifications for multiple classrooms. Once completed, facilities services will develop the blueprints into contracting bids before sending them out to various companies.

“The first step involves the adjacent lab next to the cadaver suite,” said Mark Austin, department chair of biological sciences. “What we’re interested in doing is knocking out the wall between the cadaver suite and the adjacent lab and extending the suite another 10-feet.”

The changes will provide more room for moving cadavers around and will facilitate the addition of two more cadaver stations.

This second phase of renovations will total $1.2 million with a completion date tentatively set for the early half of the fall 2016 semester.

“Every year we get funding from the state legislature as part of the Idaho Permanent Building Fund,” said Cheryl Hanson, director of engineering, planning and environment with ISU facilities services. “The state appropriated funds will not cover everything. They don’t cover equipment and chairs – things that are not attached to the building will not be covered.”

Hanson said the building fund does cover lab tables attached to the floor that have items plumbed in such as water, gas, air and electrical elements.

The first phase of renovations to the A&P lab, which totaled $1.7 million, is now complete with new ventilation, heating, cooling and lighting, as well as new ceiling tiles, flooring and cabinets, however, the older lab tables were recycled because funding to purchase new tables was not available at the time.

“We’re going to get rid of the fixed lab tables and have moveable lab tables installed so we can have the flexibility of having more space,” Austin said. “We’re also going to need better stainless steel sinks that people can use to wash their hands, instruments and dissecting tools.”

Formaldehyde, phenol, methanol and glycerin are the typical chemicals used to preserve a cadaver, and when combined with the smell still lingering from bodily remains, the odor that saturates the room is highly distinctive and to some, if not everyone, quite putrid.

With the stench being unbearable to some, the biological sciences department offers online, hybrid A&P courses, which by design halves the amount of time students are handling cadavers.

“Our laboratory experiences are alternating weeks with in-person, mostly cadaveric time, and virtual experiments,” said Shawn Bearden, associate professor in the biological sciences department who is also instructing the hybrid course. “The lecture is in multimedia modular format such that students have a set of interactive videos and MP3 audio files each week.”

Participants in the course then meet twice each week via Google Hangouts where Bearden answers any questions the students have.

“This provides the content in a dynamic and interactive format which leverages modern technology for 4D experiences in physiology that are impossible to provide in traditional lectures,” Bearden said.

Bearden also said some students have faced a learning curve as the format is new to them, but he has many students who have latched on within the first week and are already helping those for whom it is taking a little longer to grasp the new technological concepts.

Divided into two semesters, A&P courses are said by many to be acutely rigorous with the first semester dealing with the anatomy portion, which demands the memorization of terms associated with human skeletal, muscular and some neural systems. The second semester deals with the physiology portion, which highlights the endocrine system, more of the neural system and understanding why something works the way it does.

“So far things have been really good actually,” said Andrew Turner, a junior health physics major. “I didn’t really like the lecture portion and you can get a lot more out of the online section because you can go along at your own speed.”

Hybrid courses are one of many ways in which technology continues to change and develop college curriculum.

Bearden’s hybrid A&P course has 330 students enrolled and they are all getting the same experience, although in-person lecture courses are still available to those who prefer going to class.

“This is how education has always been in intention students learning from their professors,” Bearden said. “The model of standing in front of a giant class and lecturing was never a good model and modern technology now makes it archaic.”