Students from Salt Lake Community College collaborated with West High School students in a group trivia competition called Anatomy Games on Feb. 5.
The Leonardo Museum and Body Worlds sponsored the event, which was held at the museum in downtown Salt Lake City.
SLCC adjunct faculty Jeff Huffman teaches seven classes this semester and was SLCC’s student advisor for Anatomy Games.
Prior to the event, Huffman said, “I’m super pumped. It’s gonna be fantastic, I couldn’t be more excited.”
Despite having only a week to get ready, students impressed onlookers with their knowledge throughout the competition.
“What I’m most impressed about are these high school kids, they are so smart. I can’t believe what they are going to be like in college,” said Shaun Boyle, SLCC graduate and biology enthusiast.
Jenie Skoy, Body Worlds communications manager and creator of Anatomy Games, hosted the event.
“The champions of this are maybe even going to be champions of the world,” Skoy said. “Because they like it so much, we’re going to be doing this in other markets.”
Local scholars from colleges across northern Utah contributed to the production of Anatomy Games.
Dr. David Morton, a gross anatomy course director at the University of Utah School of Medicine, served as emcee and curated the list of quiz questions for the Games.
“For our smarty pants in [the] audience, if you know an answer please don’t blurt it out. It defeats the purpose for the Games,” Morton explained. “We really are going to have fun, we have talked to a number of students and evidently the pucker factor is quite high.”
Morton brought the crowd to life with his lighthearted anatomy humor. “There is some very strong external anal sphincter action going on here so far tonight; this is fun,” Morton said.
Dr. Mark Nielsen was record keeper and game maker for the competition.
Nielsen is a professor in the biology department at the University of Utah. Nielson has taught anatomy for over 25 years to over 20,000 students, 1,000 of which he has trained to be teaching assistants in his cadaver lab.
Dr. Jon Wisco, the referee for the Games, teaches anatomy at Brigham Young University. Wisco explained the rules of the game and instructed students to ignore the verbal “that was easy” dialog the buzzer sounded with each button push.
“Sometimes it’s not that easy,” says Wisco.
Skoy is pleased to have such strong partners in the development of Anatomy Games.
While pointing to the contestants, Skoy said, “You future doctors down here, PAs, nurses, you’re going to take from him or [Dr. David] Morton, and even Dr. [Jon] Wisco.” She added, “You guys, these are going to be your future teachers.”
The competition was fierce, and while the SLCC-West High team may not have won the Games, that didn’t seem to bother contestant and SLCC student Sean Shingleton, a biology major with plans of transferring to the University of Utah.
“It was fun. There needs to be more events like this,” says Shingleton. “It gave me a lot of ideas. Maybe like a science ‘Jeopardy’ game; get all the SLCC students involved, maybe even the community or high school students.”
