BPMI students’ anatomical drawings for Comparative Chordate Anatomy (BIOL351)

Contributors
Bowfin dermal series with labeled parts
This excellent illustration of a bowfin fish with labels was created by Katherine Tran, and is available under a CC-BY-NC-SA 3.0 license

The goal of this project was to have Biological and Pre-Medical Illustration (BPMI) students create anatomical illustrations of the specimens studied in the lab sections of BIOL351 Comparative Chordate Anatomy. These digital illustrations were then incorporated in the lab handbook that the students receive at the beginning of the semester as well as being made available as OER. The BPMI students were recruited from those that had previously attended the course, and the PI worked with them during the Fall of 2020.

This project gave BPMI students the opportunity to work closely with the lab instructor and me to develop detailed anatomical illustrations, and it allowed them to showcase their work in the lab handbook as well as make it more widely available as OER, while being compensated for their time and effort.

A total of 9 illustrations were made open access under the CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 Creative Commons copyright license. Following is a list of the illustrations:

  1. Turtle skeleton by Olivia Seweryn (O.S.)
  2. Turtle girdles by O.S.
  3. Human eye by O.S.
  4. Bowfin dermal series by Katherine Tran (K.T.)
  5. Shark skeleton and girdles by K.T.
  6. Shark chondrocranium by K.T.
  7. Necturus upper body muscles by Graham Hagan (G.H.)
  8. Rabbit lower body muscles by G.H.
  9. Rabbit upper body muscles by G.H.

These can all be accessed via the Iowa State University Digital Repository, in a collection titled Biology 351 Anatomical Illustrations.

I am also currently working with O.S. to develop 3 more illustrations: a ventral and dorsal view of the shark brain, and a diagram of shark circulation.

These illustrations will be included in the lab pack for BIOL351 in future years, and I will continue working with BPMI students to improve the illustrations in it.