Educational outreach as a simple, yet effective, service-learning opportunity for exercise science students.

SERVICE-LEARNING ACTIVITIES for students in the health sciences often involve volunteer work at local wellness centers, nursing homes, hospitals, and blood drives. While service learning is certainly known to be effective and resources exist to aid in the development of service learning, unfortunately, students in the exercise science (ES) area frequently have difficulty finding ES-specific activities and express dissatisfaction in the level of relevance to the field of those that do exist. In fact, the first study of ES-specific service learning was only recently published (4). Even though service learning is known to improve student learning in areas similar to ES (1, 5), many college and university ES departments do not mention service-learning courses or opportunities on their websites. However, a community service need that exists, which can be easily met by ES students in service learning, is educating children on the benefits of physical activity and its role in health. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services “Healthy People 2020” initiative has a goal to “increase the quality, availability, and effectiveness of educational and community-based programs designed to prevent disease and injury, improve health, and enhance quality of life” (8). Utilizing service-learning projects that engage ES students in educational outreach to promote health and physical activity to primary and secondary students is a relatively simple way to meet the needs of both the community and the ES students simultaneously. In 2005, the American Physiological Society (APS) launched an educational outreach program to be implemented locally across the nation called “Physiology Understanding (PhUn) Week.” The goals of PhUn Week are to increase K–12 student interest in the study of physiology, introduce students to careers in physiology, increase teacher awareness of physiology in their curriculum, and involve physiology scientists in outreach to the community. The PhUn Week website and online resources are ideal for facilitating a faculty member or department’s first attempt at implementing service learning into the undergraduate and graduate ES curriculum (2). The PhUn Week website includes numerous resources to provide ideas and aid in lesson planning as well as promotional materials and guides for establishing connections with K–12 educator. After partnering with a local K–12 teacher or school and submitting a planner to the APS, a physiologist will be sent a variety of items that can be given out to participating K–12 students. With these resources, much of the ground work for designing a service-learning experience for college students is already done. We describe a simple, inexpensive, and highly effective way to utilize PhUn Week as the foundation for a positive service-learning experience for college students, while also providing outreach and education to an important segment of the community.