Squeals and laughter erupt on the
Duke Quad as a dozen fourth graders shoot each other with homemade squirt guns.
Some have a hard time coaxing water out of the contraptions, which are crudely
fashioned from recycled water bottles and plastic tubes. Everyone gets
delightfully wet, and believe it or not, a little smarter about heart health.
The
water fight is part of a lesson taught during DukeMed Elementary, a program led
by Duke University School of Medicine students. The exercise is meant to
demonstrate the differences between flexible and hardened arteries, with the
easier-to-squirt guns representing healthier, more flexible arteries, while the
harder-to-squirt guns represent hardened, less healthy ones. And once they go
inside to recap the activity, the children have no problem grasping the lesson.
"They don't
realize it, but they're learning from it," says Navid Pourtaheri, G'08, MSIII, one of the founders of the program.
"They remember when we ask them later which one was the old vessel and
which one got the blood out better."
DukeMed Elementary
gives students from six Durham elementary schools the opportunity to learn
about heart anatomy, exercise, diet and nutrition outside of the traditional
classroom setting. Interactive weekend conferences for fourth graders are held
in the amphitheater at Duke Clinic once a year for each of the six schools.
A big hit with the
fourth graders are the pig hearts, which are used to teach heart anatomy.
Touching the hearts "was really fun," says 10-year-old Esme Wheeler.
"It feels squishy. It was just kind of weird touching an organ that had
been in a pig's body."
Pourtaheri first conceived of DukeMed Elementary
during his first year of medical school. And with help from Melodi Javid, MSII,
the two officially launched the program in 2009 with the primary goal of
fighting childhood obesity in Durham. The program also includes a second
component, a luncheon and program on the human body for third graders run by
first-year medical students.
During
the weekend conferences, the fourth graders' days are packed as Pourtaheri,
Javid, and other volunteer medical students lead them in activities ranging
from lectures on food science to fun games that get the students moving around.
Much like the water gun fight, a simple
game of tag is filled with learning opportunities, says Pourtaheri. After
running around, the students might learn how to measure their own heart rates.
Or, with nutrition facts hidden in their pockets, students can pretend to be
snacks. At the end of the game, they learn whether they tagged or "ate"
healthy or unhealthy snacks. Then they play the game again; only the nutrition
facts are clearly displayed, making it easier for the students to choose the
healthy snacks.
"We
hope to give them the tools to be able to make smart choices about their diet
on their own," Javid says. "They don't always get to decide what they're
going to eat, but from what's presented to them we want them to know how to
figure out what the healthiest options are."
Whether they're
held inside or outside or involve running around or sitting still, the DukeMed
Elementary lessons are designed to complement what the children are already
learning in the Durham Public Schools. In school the fourth graders are
learning about food science, while the third graders are focused on the human
body.
Hannibal Person, MSII,
created the DukeMed Elementary curriculum, initially using resources he found
on the Internet and then getting feedback from teachers at some of the six
partner schools. Though he has had experience tutoring kindergarteners through
fourth graders at a local community center, this was his first attempt at
coming up with a curriculum from scratch. "Once the actual structure of
our objectives was established, putting it together was pretty straightforward,"
Person says.
The curriculum
continues to evolve, and Person makes tweaks based on student feedback. "It's
been an exciting experience seeing what you wrote come to life," he says.
The fee for the
conference is $5, but if a parent can't afford it, the fee can be waived. "We
want to get students interested in the health sciences," Javid says, "and
present to them a whole world of career options in the health professions."
At the end of the
weekend conference, the students get to pretend they are researchers and show
off what they learned by giving poster presentations for their parents. Some
present their posters in Spanish.
In addition to
helping the elementary students, Pourtaheri says the program is beneficial to
the medical students as well. "We really want to foster more of a culture
of teaching and mentorship in medicine, and we want students to have an outlet
to do that and develop those skills," he says.
Pourtaheri and Javid's
work with the DukeMed Elementary program was recognized last year when they
were named 2010-11 North Carolina Albert Schweitzer Fellows. In February
Pourtaheri received a "Sammie" award from the Samuel Dubois Cook
Society at Duke.
Sustainability of
the program, which falls under the university's Teaching and Mentoring Interest
Group, is a major objective for Pourtaheri and Javid. They hope other medical
students will continue to lead the program and offer even more luncheons and
weekend conferences throughout the year. Other goals include creating a
website, recruiting guest speakers, and spreading the program to other medical
schools.
Kaitlin Rawluk,
MSIII, will take over the program in the fall and has already applied for a
grant for the upcoming school year.
In addition to
support from the Schweitzer Fellowship, the DukeMed Elementary program receives
funding from Duke's Doing Good in the Neighborhood campaign, the Davison
Council, and the Graduate and Professional Student Council.
Though the overall
objective of DukeMed Elementary isn't necessarily to recruit future doctors,
Javid says it melts her heart a little when some of the children say they want
to follow in her footsteps.
"I sort of
feel like the bad guy sometimes because I'm running after them telling them
they have to do this activity and that activity, trying to keep things on
track," she says. "But they still run up to me and give me a hug and say, 'What sort of doctor are you going to be? I want to be the same sort of doctor.'
I think to myself, ‘Wow, maybe they did have fun and did learn something, and
maybe I made a difference too.'"
