Tag Archives: Wolverine

Superheroes in college/university anatomy classes

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain [downloaded from https://phys.org/news/2023-08-anatomy-superheroic-science-class.html]

An August 9, 2023 news item on phys.org highlights how superhero anatomy is being employed in human anatomy courses, Note: A link has been removed,

What do superheroes Deadpool and Elastigirl have in common? Each was used in a college anatomy class to add relevance to course discussions—Deadpool to illustrate tissue repair, and Elastigirl, aka Mrs. Incredible, as an example of hyperflexibility.

Instructors at The Ohio State University College of Medicine created a “SuperAnatomy” course in an attempt to improve the experience of undergraduate students learning the notoriously difficult—and for some, scary or gross—subject matter of human anatomy.

An August 9, 2023 Ohio State University news release (also on EurekAlert), which originated the news item, delves further into the topic, Note: Links have been removed,

Surveys showed that most students who took the class found the use of superheroes increased their motivation to learn, fostered deeper understanding of the material, and made the content more approachable and enjoyable.

A few of the many content examples also included considering how Wolverine’s claws would affect his musculoskeletal system and citing Groot in a discussion of skin disorders.The effort was aimed at bringing creativity to the classroom – in the form of outside-the-box instruction and as a way to inspire students’ imagination and keep them engaged, said Melissa Quinn, associate professor of anatomy at Ohio State and senior author of a study on the course’s effectiveness.

“In these introductory courses, it’s a little tougher to talk about clinical relevance because students don’t fully understand a lot of the mechanics,” Quinn said. “But if you bring in pop culture, which everybody is inundated with in some way, shape or form, and tie it to the foundational sciences, then that becomes a way to apply it a little bit more.”

The study was published recently in the journal Anatomical Sciences Education.

First author Jeremy Grachan, the mastermind behind the course’s creation, led design of the curriculum as an Ohio State PhD student and is now an assistant professor of anatomy at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School.

SuperAnatomy was created as a 1000-level three-credit-hour undergraduate course open to students of all majors. The class consisted of three 55-minute lectures each week and lab sessions offered twice in the semester. The course’s curriculum borrowed heavily from Human Anatomy 2300, a four-credit-hour course taken primarily by pre-health profession majors, consisting of live and recorded lectures, review sessions and one lab per week.

Students from both classes were invited to join the study over three semesters in 2021 and 2022; 36 students in SuperAnatomy and 442 students in Human Anatomy participated. Researchers collected data from 50-question quizzes given during the first week of classes and at the end of the semester intended to gauge how well students learned and applied course content. The students also completed pre- and post-course surveys.

The quiz results showed that student learning and application of material in the two courses was essentially the same. And to be clear, the SuperAnatomy content was not all cartoons and comic books.

“We looked at courses already running in our anatomy curriculum and took the relevant parts of those courses and added in the superheroes,” Quinn said. “So we actually elevated the curriculum.”

The follow-up survey of SuperAnatomy participants suggested the inclusion of superheroes strengthened their class experience, with nearly all students reporting that pop culture and superhero references expanded their understanding of course material and boosted their motivation to do well in the class.

“Collectively, if the students are enjoying the course and motivated to learn the material it could be better not only for their academic success, but their mental health and social wellbeing too,” the authors wrote.

Human anatomy is tough stuff – on top of the high volume of unfamiliar medical terms rooted in Latin, it can be unsettling to learn about the body in such a scientific, yet intimate, way.

“If you don’t have a good tour guide to help you, you might be inclined to give up pretty quickly,” Quinn said. “And none of us wants to be stale in our teaching.

“Here, we’ve seen that you can take a course like anatomy, which has been around forever, and bring it very much to whatever generation that we’re going to be teaching. And it’s not just about having fun – but a way to really make anatomy very interesting.”

Mason Marek and James Cray Jr. of Ohio State also co-authored the study.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Effects of using superheroes in an undergraduate human anatomy curriculum by
Jeremy J. Grachan, Mason Marek, James Cray Jr., Melissa M. Quinn. Anatomical Sciences Education DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/ase.2312 First published: 25 June 2023

This paper is open access.

Captain America, Wolverine, Iron Man, and Thor on The Abstract, North Carolina State University’s news blog

Captain America’s shield as a supercapacitor? Intriguing, oui? Thank you to Matt Shipman and his April 15, 2014 post on The Abstract (North Carolina State University’s official newsroom blog, [h/t phys.org]) for presenting a very intriguing exploration of the science to be found in comic books and, now, the movies,

Image from Captain America By Ed Brubaker Vol. 2 Premiere HC (2011 – Present). Release Date: February 21, 2012. Image credit: Marvel.com

Image from Captain America By Ed Brubaker Vol. 2 Premiere HC (2011 – Present).
Release Date: February 21, 2012. Image credit: Marvel.com
Courtesy: NCSU

I have a new appreciation for Captain America (never one of my favourite super heroes). From Shipman’s April 15, 2014 posting on The Abstract (Note: Links have been removed),

It’s tough to explain how the shield works, in part because it behaves differently under different circumstances. Sometimes the shield is thrown and becomes embedded in a wall; but sometimes it bounces off of walls, ricocheting wildly. Sometimes the shield seems to easily absorb tremendous force; but sometimes it is damaged by the attacks of Cap’s most powerful foes.

“However, from a scientific perspective, it’s important to remember that we’re talking about the first law of thermodynamics,” says Suveen Mathaudhu, a program manager in the materials science division of the U.S. Army Research Office, adjunct materials science professor at NC State University and hardcore comics fan. “Energy is conserved. It doesn’t disappear, it just changes form.

“When enormous energy, such as a blow from Thor’s hammer, strikes Cap’s shield, that energy needs to go somewhere.”

Normally, that energy would need to be either stored or converted into heat or sound. But comic-book readers and moviegoers know that Cap’s shield usually doesn’t give off waves of heat or roaring shrieks (that shockwave from Thor’s hammer in The Avengers film notwithstanding).

“That absence of heat and sound means that the energy has to be absorbed somehow; the atomic bonds in the shield – which is made of vibranium – must be able to store that energy in some form,” Mathaudhu says.

Mathaudhu, later in the posting, describes the shield’s qualities as a supercapacitor. (For more information about supercapacitors, you can look at my April 9, 2014 posting.)

Shipman’s piece appears to be part of a series featuring Wolverine, Iron Man, and Thor, which you can access by scrolling past the end of the Captain America posting (April 15, 2014 post), where you will also find at least one comment, which is worth checking out.