UAMS Promotes Health Education Among Public School Teachers

By Nate Hinkel

Bob Burns, Ph.D., founding director of the PIHS program, and a professor in the UAMS Department of Neurobiology and Developmental Sciences, uses hands-on approaches that teachers can take back to their classrooms. Bob Burns, Ph.D., founding director of the PIHS program, and a professor in the UAMS Department of Neurobiology and Developmental Sciences, uses hands-on approaches that teachers can take back to their classrooms.


Participating teachers said the workshop included plenty of techniques that will aid in passing the information on to students.

Nov. 17, 2011 | Kids had the day off in Little Rock public schools Nov. 3 but their teachers were in the classroom as a University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) Partners in Health Sciences (PIHS) workshop did the lecturing.

A demonstration of creative methods to teachers to pass on to their students about the lungs and skin aimed to foster an interest in health science and healthy living at an early age. More than 50 Little Rock School District middle school teachers signed up to learn grade-appropriate methods for teaching about the dangers of tobacco use and ultraviolet (UV) radiation in addition to the normal functions of the lungs and skin. They were credited as part of their “teacher development day” activity.

“It’s a wonderful way to renew their creative teaching juices by having the shoe on the other foot for a day,” said presenter Bob Burns, Ph.D., founding director of the PIHS program, and a professor in the UAMS Department of Neurobiology and Developmental Sciences. “The goal, of course, is to train these teachers in healthy lung and skin curricula for the purpose of increasing their knowledge and understanding of those working systems and organs. In turn they can pass that on to their students.”

Burns used a variety of hands-on and demonstrative approaches that got a good response from those in attendance. He used foam blocks to simulate the effects of smoking; and M&M candies were dropped down clear tubes to illustrate how skin pigment changes when exposed to UV radiation, among many other activities.

“This has been great,” said Debbie Frobase, a teacher at Little Rock Central High School. “I’m already excited to get back in the classroom and relay a lot of this information to our kids. Health education plays a huge role in not only potential future careers, but just living everyday healthy lives.”

Teachers were given take-home sacks filled with several teaching demonstrations and kits to help relay the information they learned that day, including a set of plastic lungs to show the dangers of smoking.

Since 1991 the PIHS program has provided thousands of hours of professional development and education programs for Arkansas teachers, school nurses and students.

The PIHS program has been providing professional development statewide to Pre-K-12 teachers since 1991. At the end of December 2010 the UAMS PIHS program counted 20,327 participants who have consumed 73,807 hours of continuing education or professional development in 118 different health science topics taught by 202 different faculty from the UAMS Colleges of Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy, Public Health, Healthy Related Professions and the Graduate School. This effort has resulted in six major publications in peer-reviewed scientific journals that have international readership. These programs have been financially supported by UAMS, National Institutes of Health Center for Research Resources, Arkansas Department of Health, Arkansas Cancer Coalition, Arkansas Department of Higher Education, and the Arkansas Department of Human Services – Division of Child Care and Early Childhood Education.