Understanding how we understand: promoting research literacy during PhUn Week

Physiology Understanding (PhUn) Week is an outreach program that encourages connections between scientists and their local schools. Students (n=23) enrolled in a combined undergraduate and graduate Research in Sport and Health Science course served as visiting scientist teachers for a high school anatomy course at a non‐traditional charter school (24 participants). University students identified an original research article in the literature and a popular press source that mentioned that primary source and brought these to the classroom. The university students also designed a brief lesson to address: 1) the components of the primary research article, and 2) how well the popular press source translated the findings to a lay audience. Pairings of high school students spent approximately 30 min each with two different sets of university students. High school students were given a worksheet to record knowledge gained and university students were anonymously surveyed after the experience. Based on these quantitative survey results, university students enjoyed the experience, did not find it difficult to translate knowledge to an age‐appropriate level, learned something about themselves from the experience, and thought the high school students enjoyed and learned from the activity. Open‐ended responses supported these findings and addressed the willingness of the high school students to engage in conversations about the research process and future career plans. These results suggest that activities designed to promote research literacy can be enjoyable and engaging in this setting. Future work should address the effectiveness of this type of programing. In addition, this project successfully piloted PhUn Week activities into a non‐physiology specific course. Support or Funding Information The American Physiological Society provided PhUn Week promotional materials.