StanfordOnline: Your Body in the World: Adapting to Your Next Big Adventure

We are excited that you want to explore your body's response to the world. Your body is an amazing machine that is equipped with the capacity to deal with the world's great stressors.

This course may be different from other courses you have taken online. Our intention is to create more than just a class conveying information; we want to create an educational experience. You will be engaged in stories about physiology from across the country, develop relationships with the instructors as they sacrifice their bodies for the good of science and be awed by the complexity and adaptability of the human body. You will also have the opportunity to hear from top scientists and adventurers in the field. The class will illustrate and explain how your body responds to cold, heat, stress, age, altitude, g-forces, diving and zero gravity. Video travel and interview locations include Stanford, Harvard, MIT, US Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine, Pikes Peak, Mt Kilimanjaro, Las Vegas, and the skies above Livermore, California.

The Story

Corey stumbled into Dr. Friedlander's Exercise Physiology class early in his college career. Eventually becoming her teaching assistant, the two joined forces to discover new and exciting ways to teach physiology to Stanford students. Together they decided that the best way for Corey to really understand the material was to experience a series of diverse physiologic stressors first hand. What resulted was a series of wild and crazy adventures captured on video that provide a novel approach to teaching you the fundamentals of environmental physiology. From cold tanks to aging suits to flying fighter planes and climbing mountains, Corey and Anne bring the science to life. Come join us and be a part of our story as we learn about the human body!

About the team

The teaching team is composed of professors, students, storytellers and video producers. We interface with academic researchers and real life people in order to create an experience that draws life-long learners closer to science. We make fun, experiential videos on each topic that lead the participants into other supporting online learning materials that explain the underlying physiology. Support for this project came from the Stanford Vice Provost for Online Learning (VPOL), the Dean of Humanities and Sciences, and the Program in Human Biology.