Anatomy in Clay Workshop a hit

Teachers learn how to create models of bodies for classroom

Keith Gedamke / The Item Starla Ewan leads the Anatomy in Clay Workshop for teachers Thursday. The two-day workshop, sponsored by the South Carolina Hospitals Association, the state Department of Education and Carolinas Hospital System, taught 31 teachers how to use skeleton mannequins and clay to create models of bodies to use in the classroom.

By JASON WERMERS
Item Staff Writer
jwermers@theitem.com

In the past couple of days, teachers from across South Carolina literally formed 31 bodies out of clay at Tuomey Regional Medical Center.

It was part of the two-day Anatomy in Clay Workshop, sponsored by the South Carolina Hospitals Association, the state Department of Education and Carolinas Hospital System. Starla Ewan, a Lubbock, Texas-based teacher, taught the 31 teachers how to use skeleton mannequins and clay to create models of bodies that students also can build and dissect.

"I think the idea is for the students to construct them," said participant Jarred Boan, a health science technology instructor at the F.E. DuBose Campus of Central Carolina Technical College in Manning. "It gives them a chance to see for themselves the structure of the body and become familiar with it."

Boan teaches sports medicine I and II, emergency medicine and medical terminology at DuBose. He said the school recently received the mannequins and clay. He plans to take what he learned from the workshop and apply it to his classes as well as share his knowledge and ideas with other teachers.

Keith Gedamke / The Item Patty Epps, a science teacher at East Clarendon High School, fills in the skull of her anatomy model.

Most of the teachers attending the workshop already had the materials, but several didn't. One of those is Patty Epps, who teaches biology, chemistry and anatomy at East Clarendon High in Turbeville. She hoped to be one of seven teachers at the workshop to win grants from the hospitals association to buy the mannequins and clay.

"The clay is hands on," Epps said. "It helps students visualize where the muscles are attached."

Epps said she teaches her students how to dissect cats. The models will help them transition to a practical knowledge of the human body.

"I'm really enjoying it," she said during a break in the workshop. "I'm looking forward to making more muscles."

Ewan said this method of teaching human anatomy is easier and more fun for students than working out of a textbook. She said she hopes that by showing more teachers this method, more students will be drawn to the medical field for careers such as nursing, physical therapy or occupational therapy.

"Too many times this topic has been tortuous to students," Ewan said.

The Department of Education has put on one or two workshops for each of the past five years, said Nancy Allen, who specializes in health science technology education for the department. This week's event was paid for by a $130,000 department grant.

"We want to be on hospital campuses so they know what is going on in the high schools," Allen said.



Contact Staff Writer Jason Wermers at jwermers@theitem. com or (803) 774-1295.