On any other night, the sight of three students’ exposed muscles and bones would have caused a panic among patrons at The Fat Frogg Bar & Grill. But at 7 p.m. Oct. 13, Elon University Physician Assistant Program seniors Lisa Nichols, Boyd Vicars and Kim Heald smiled and joked as they walked between the restaurant’s tables, flaunting arms and legs painted with realistic representations of the underlying muscular and skeletal systems.
“We are able to put the microscopic picture together with the macroscopic idea,” Bennett said.
To demonstrate the anatomy skills learned in lecture, students apply washable paint to their peers, representing the underlying anatomy on the surface of the skin. The result falls somewhere between science and art.
But Bennett’s approach to teaching anatomy isn’t just artistic — it’s revolutionary.
“What’s kind of neat is that as far as I know, I’m the first person to do this in the United States,” she said.
Body painting as pedagogy
Bennett “takes the show on the road” as often as she can, presenting at science fairs by displaying her students’ work. In her latest outreach endeavor, she presented “Climbing inside humans: A hands-on look at anatomical body painting” for the October installment of Tectonic Plates: Alamance County's Science Cafe, a monthly series dedicated to bringing scientific learning into the community.
The former OB-GYN and surgeon introduced body painting into her classroom in her first year at Elon to counterbalance the lack of opportunities for students to get their hands dirty.
“I started body painting the first year I was at Elon because we had a human donor lab that the PA program was set up with,” she said. “The plan was that we would do what’s called anatomic prosections. What that means is that I’d teach the anatomy, I’d do some slides, people would come in, they'd see it already dissected, and then we’re done.”
Without dissection initially included in the curriculum, Bennet needed to develop a kinesthetic approach to teaching anatomy. Lacking access to cadavers, she turned to a resource she did have — live students.
“I was a bit intimidated by the examples we saw," Vicars said. "They were all so intricate. But you do a little at a time, and put it all together.”
Bennett began her presentation by bringing the three students onstage and asking them to flex their muscles, using the painted extremities to explain how specific internal body parts work together. From the moment the first muscle was flexed, audience members were transfixed, whether they’d come to Fat Frogg for the presentation or dinner.
Accompanied by her live models and a PowerPoint, Bennett outlined the origin of the art of body painting and its evolution as an academic tool in other countries.
“At some point, anatomists who saw this art figured out body painting could be an excellent teaching tool,” she said.
She also showed pictures of body painting sessions done by former students, providing anecdotes of students’ “Aha! moments” when they understood a concept after painting.
“When there is something they don’t understand, they paint it, then they say, ‘Oh, now I get it!’” Bennett said.
Patorns of Fat Frogg got to witness a few “Aha! moments” themselves. Twice during the presentation, Bennett asked for two volunteers to get painted. She showcased the finished artwork onstage as she explained the anatomical importance of each bone, muscle and artery painted on the body parts of the volunteers.
But the point of the presentation wasn’t to showcase the students’ artistic and anatomical expertise — rather, Bennett’s goal was to explain the importance of kinesthetic learning to an audience beyond her classroom.
“There is science to be had, and my end of body painting, is teaching the science, but it’s also the science of educating people,” Bennett said.
Her current research involves how body painting impacts student learning, and her recent focus on this topic is what sparked her to contact Dave Gammon, associate professor of biology at Elon, about presenting at a Tectonic Plates event after hearing about the series during a science fair at Holly Hill Mall in 2013.
"It was right in there when I heard what Tectonic Plates was, and I thought, ‘Wow, that sounds awesome, I want in,’” Bennett said.
Originally, Bennett didn’t feel she had a specific topic to present — but as she developed body painting as a learning tool over the past few years, she realized she did have something to offer, after all. She contacted Gammon, who immediately put her on the schedule.
As excited as she was to feature her students’ hard work, she was nervous about interacting with her audience. Used to presenting to graduate school students, she admitted her initial concerns.
“It was a little daunting,” Bennett said. “I don’t want to talk down to anybody, but I don’t want to talk over people’s heads, either. And we’re here, we’re in a restaurant, there’s lots of chitchat. If you’re not entertaining enough, people will just walk out and leave.”
The evolution of Tectonic Plates
Bennett was the latest presenter in Tectonic Plates, which started about four or five years ago as Gammon's brainchild.
“I’ve always been interested in science outreach, the interface of science and society,” he said. “I was just Googling around, thinking, ‘What are some avenues for getting science out to the public?’ And I stumbled on the concept of a science cafe, which is an international concept.”
According to ScienceCafes.org, where Gammon initially encountered the idea, science cafes are informal grassroots events hosted by scientists anywhere from restaurants to coffee houses with the goal of engaging a specific scientific idea with a group of people who normally wouldn’t participate in scientific conversation.
“It looked like if you wanted to start a science cafe, all you had to do was start it,” he said. “You don’t need a regulatory body or anything. So I thought, ‘Could I do it?’”
Gammon talked to other members of the biology department, who granted him reassign time to devote to investigating and developing Elon’s own science cafe. He taught fewer classes, using the time to tour other cafes around the country.
Once he had the idea down, he had to think about logistics. He needed somewhere close to campus with a large stage. Luckily for Gammon, Peter Ustach '09 gave him the space at Fat Frogg.
With the details finally set, the program officially premiered in spring 2012 and has hosted eight or nine programs each year since. Gammon has seen the program grow since then, drawing in a cross-section of the Elon community.
“We see more community members, though it varies from talk to talk,” he said. “We do usually get some Elon students, a half dozen sprinkled here and there, and sometimes the speaker will be an Elon professor who will encourage students to come.”
Elon reaches out
According to Gammon, Bennett’s engaging style brought more casual patrons into the presentation than past presenters’. More than 40 members of the community engaged with Bennett and her students.
A table of local high schoolers turned out, thanks to outreach by Elon Academy Assistant Director of Scholar Support John Pickett. He brought along five participants of Elon’s college access and success program, two of which volunteered to have their bodies painted.
Caitlen Arnett, a junior at Western Alamance High School, practically jumped off the stage to show her body art to her peers. She said the graduate student who painted her hand made a point to explain what she was painting and why.
“She was telling me a mnemonic device to remember the bones in your hand,” Arnett said. “She was telling me how cool the class and the painting is, and how it helps her during exams.”
Elon’s emphasis on community involvement and hands-on, person-to-person education aligns well with Gammon’s mission for the Tectonic Plates series, a fact not lost on him or Bennett.
“I like being at Elon because there’s this big emphasis on experiential learning,” Bennet said. “I’ve had lots of freedom to bring seemingly nutty ideas like this one, and I’ve been stunned to see that not only are people OK with me trying it, but they're like, ‘Do you need a budget?’ It’s great being at a school that allows stuff like this.”