The Elizabeth Towns Incident: An Inquiry-Based Approach to Learning Anatomy Developed Through High School-University Collaboration

The Elizabeth Towns Incident (ETI), a set of inquiry lessons on human anatomy, was developed as part of a partnership between the Houston Independent School District (HISD) and Baylor College of Medicine. This collaboration was funded by the National Science Foundation's program, Graduate Teaching Fellowship in K-12 Education. The Houston-based project joins area graduate students with HISD high school biology teachers to strengthen identified weak areas within their existing science curriculum. This article describes the collaboration among two Baylor College of Medicine graduate students, an HISD biology teacher, and the curriculum developed during a one-year partnership during the 2001-2002 school year. The development process and the project outcomes demonstrate the untapped potential of productive interaction between K-12 educational institutions and burgeoning scientists (i.e., graduate students). The Elizabeth Towns Incident (ETI) provides a realistic storyline creating a coalescing theme as each organ system is first explored and then linked to the body's overall function. The design of ETI is flexible depending on a particular class's level of learning (i.e., Biology I vs. AP Biology); more or less detail can be added or subtracted without significantly detracting from the story line. The collaborative experience yielded three key results: (1) a positive influence in the students' understanding of human anatomy and the interdependence of the organ systems; (2) a better understanding of the critical areas required for a fruitful scientist-teacher collaboration; and (3) scientist-student interaction resulting in the breakdown of inhibitory science career stereotypes. (Contains 4 tables and 1 figure.)