First year VUSN students Lora Davis, left, and Erica Taylor check out The Voice Box exhibit in the new Body Quest interactive exhibit at Nashville’s Adventure Science Center. By using controls they are able to control air flow, pull a voice box mechanism and change the sound. Behind them is the lung exhibit. Nursing students "staffed" the exhibit during the opening night for patrons.
photo by Kats Barry
Nursing students help shape new interactive education attraction
A giant brain and an ambulance are available for inspection at the new exhibit.
photo by Kats Barry
Students from a community health class at the Vanderbilt University School of Nursing had a big hand in the new “BodyQuest” exhibit at the Adventure Science Center in Nashville.
About 20 nursing students were asked to write the scripts that will become the program to guide visitors in each section of the new attraction that takes visitors on a journey through the human body and its functions. The exhibit displays six body systems in an interactive, fun learning environment for children and adults young at heart. The nursing students researched and wrote small presentations to explain each system, including the immune, digestive, respiratory, circulatory, musculo-skeletal and nervous systems.
“It's something that's permanent and it's exciting to be a part of something that so many children will benefit from,” said VUSN student Erica Pennington. Fellow student Nick Nichols was wide-eyed exploring the exhibit himself on opening night. “I think it will be very effective. The interaction is awesome. I've never seen anything like it. Young children, teenagers, even moms and dads can connect with it,” he said.
Kelly Alsup, an educator at the Adventure Science Center, said they turned to VUSN students for their health expertise. “They bring a different viewpoint. We also wanted to inspire kids to go into a medical career, and our hands-on mini Medical Center will hopefully inspire them,” said Alsup.
Nursing student Mary Sanford Hay said working on the project wasn't as easy as it sounds. “The hardest part was making it so a kid would understand.”
Children can check on “Pat,” the patient in the new exhibit, learn how to take his blood pressure, give an injection and read his temperature while wearing a real hospital mask and shoe covers. The lifelike, oversized beating heart experiences a heart attack every hour, the floors of the exhibit light up with neon nerve pathways connecting each body system and the digestive system even shows kids how food travels through the body and beyond. Some of the students said they call it “really gross anatomy.”
There is a locker room with tips on staying safe, a giant brain in which kids can explore and learn about how the different parts of the brain control different body functions, and even an ambulance for kids to crawl inside.
Community Health Instructor Martha Conrad, M.P.H., R.N., who is also a volunteer at the Adventure Science Center, said working with the Center was a perfect fit for the students. “This is hopefully the cutting edge movement. It's perfect for community health,” said Conrad.
Admission to “BodyQuest” is $8.75 for adults and $6.75 for children and seniors. For more information call 862-5160, or log on to www.adventuresci.com.