Earlier this year, Professor Scott Thomas of the University of Toronto Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education (KPE), came across a study about an application tool called RespiLab. Developed in Spain by Alher Mauricio Hernandez, Miguel Angel Mananas and Ramon Costa-Castelló, RespiLab is a computer model that uses stimuli and responses to help students understand how the body responds to challenges such as exercise, altitude and changes in lung structure.
Intrigued, Thomas emailed the authors to find out more about how the app works and how it could be applied in KPE to teach respiratory physiology. He then teamed up with Cathie Kessler, a laboratory coordinator and technician at KPE, for help in adapting the app for web use. Several months later, the app is ready to be used in KPE 264, a second year introductory course to exercise physiology taught by KPE’s Assistant Professor Jenna Gillen.
“I’m really excited for the students to use the app in their respiratory and cardiovascular physiology labs,” says Gillen. “Laboratory activities are designed to complement and help reinforce key concepts discussed in lectures, as well as provide students with a more hands-on learning experience. This usually involves in-person exercise testing in the lab, but in light of current restrictions, this app allows us to still meet those pedagogical goals while also providing an exciting new tool for our students.”
Students in KPE 264 get a broad understanding of the human body’s physiological response to exercise, specifically the response of the skeletal muscle metabolic and cardiorespiratory systems.
“This is knowledge that can be applied to both sport performance and human health,” says Gillen.
This semester, students in her course will be able to use RespiLab in asynchronous labs to test out different challenges to the respiratory system and look at how breathing, blood gases and the heart respond.
“The great thing about using a computer simulation is that you can try out challenges that would not be possible in an in person laboratory,” says Thomas. “For example, you can see what happens if you set the model for moderate intensity exercise at four kilometers altitude for a person with asthma. It also puts some control in the students’ hands because they can try out experiments that they themselves create.”
What makes RespiLab unique, according to Thomas, is that it not only helps students learn about a complex topic such as respiratory physiology, but it introduces them to widespread computer models.
“My hope is that once these simulations are established in Jenna’s course, we can continue to develop them and use them in other courses across the Faculty,” says Thomas.