The biomedical engineering curriculum increases students’ understanding of body systems, with a specific focus on the skeletal and nervous systems. Seventh-grade science and AP biology students are introduced to various types of engineering fields, which builds background knowledge for considering the human body as a series of complex mechanical, chemical and electrical systems. Demonstrations and hands-on activities with a variety of porous materials are used to represent bone materials and test changes in bone strength. The unit on the body’s electrical system includes the demonstration of and recording of the electrical activity of muscles provides and electrical impulses and rhythms of the heart are examined using some elemental instrumental and compared to more sophisticated means.
The bone strength aspects of this curriculum were developed in conjunction with Professor Kathleen Issen, Mechanical Engineering.
The unit on the body’s electrical system and signal processing were developed as part of Professor Alireza Ziarani's NSF CAREER Award (BES-0447705)
Drs. Issen and Ziarani are both affiliated with Clarkson’s Center for Rehabilitation Engineering & Science Technology (CREST.)