Why Color?
Coloring is an excellent way to learn about the structure (anatomy) and function (physi-ology) of the human body. Anatomy, by its nature, is learned primarily by memorization. Coloring helps students remember because they must pay attention to detail, visualize structures, and physically feel the relationship between different structures as they
color. Physiology builds upon anatomical knowledge by explaining how structures ac-complish particular tasks. Learning physiology requires some memorization, which is fa-cilitated by the coloring process, but it also requires an additional level of conceptual un-derstanding. Complex pathways and principles must be broken down into component parts and subsequently reassembled and related to other pathways. Students using the Coloring Atlas of the Human Body approach will deepen their understanding of physiol-ogy because they can visualize the participation of structures and components in the pathway. Moreover, the necessity of coloring one section of a diagram at a time helps students to break the path ways into their component parts. Once a pathway is under-stood as a function of its parts and as a whole, its relevance to disease can also be un-derstood.
Best of all, coloring is fun for students—a welcome distraction from more static studying activities such as reading and memorizing!
Organization
Coloring Atlas of the Human Body follows the systems approach favored by traditional anatomy and physiology textbooks, so it can be used with any such book. The first chap-ter summarizes fundamental concepts in anatomy, cell biology, and histology. Students will find it useful to complete these exercises before proceeding with the rest of the book. Subsequent chapters deal with the anatomy and physiology of different body systems, and need not be completed in order.
Some chapters also discuss selected aspects of disease. Sometimes, the normal functioning of a system can be best understood by studying the problems caused by disease. The effects of insuli n, for example, are brought to life by learning about dia-betes mellitus.
Each exercise contains two parts: a narrative page and a figure page. The narrative page summarizes critical information using bulleted lists, tables, and flowcharts, and di-rects the reader to the matching flashcards (if any) in Appendix I. As students read through the narrative, they will be asked to color in relevant structure names and the
structures themselves on the diagram on the facing page. The action of coloring thestructure name and the structure will help students remember the spelling and location of the structure. In addition, the completed diagram will serve as a useful reference and review tool, since it will be easy to match different structures to the different terms.
Flashcards
Some coloring exercises cover content students often have trouble remembering. These exercises have accompanying flashcards that can be found at the back of the book in Appendix I. The front of each flashcard features a magnified view of a section of the coloring exercise figure with up to 15 labeled structures, with the names of thestructures featured on the back. Students can rip out flashcards that accompany a particular exercise and color them in conjunction with the larger figure, using the same color scheme. In addition to the extra reinforcement that coloring the flashcards pro-vides, students benefit from being able to use the colored-in flashcards anywhere—on the bus or walking to class—as a portable study tool for review and self-testing.
Additional Student Resources
For students who have purchased the book, Coloring Atlas of the Human Body also includes two bonus Coloring Exercises as well as helpful study tips, available on the companion website at www.thepoint.com/HullColoringAtlas. See the inside front cover of this text for more details, including the passcode you will need to gain access to the website.
In short, the Coloring Atlas of the Human Body provides an essential learning pack-age for today’s visually oriented students. It integrates two popular and effective learn-ing tools—coloring guides and flashcards—to help students learn challenging concepts and evaluate their progress.
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