Human Anatomy & Physiology

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Course Description

Anatomy & Physiology I is the first semester of the two-course A&P sequence and the gateway course for nursing and the allied-health professions. It builds the structural and physiological foundation the rest of the sequence — and your clinical training — is built on. We move along the natural arc of the subject — body organization & anatomical language → the chemistry of life → cells & membrane transport → cellular metabolism → tissues → the integumentary system → the skeletal system → joints → muscle & the physiology of contraction → nervous tissue & the nerve impulse → the central, peripheral, and autonomic nervous systems → the special senses — and at every step we lead with the plain-language idea before the mechanism, then trace structure to function and the way the body holds itself in balance through homeostasis.

The emphasis throughout is on relating structure to function and reasoning about homeostasis, and on using anatomical language precisely. Most of the course is conceptual, vocabulary-rich, and diagram-heavy, but physiology also has real quantitative pockets — pH and buffers, solute concentration and osmolarity, simple dosage and ratio math, and the membrane potential of a neuron — and we work those by hand with every step shown. A weekly A&P lab is where the anatomy gets real: you'll identify structures on a free virtual anatomy atlas or virtual microscope, predict and read off physiology values in a simulation, or measure your own body, then form a hypothesis and interpret what you find. A weekly AI-tutor tutorial gives you a low-stakes place to practice — and to catch the chatbot's anatomy and physiology mistakes, a habit this course returns to every week.

A note on scope. This is Anatomy & Physiology I. The cardiovascular, lymphatic/immune, respiratory, digestive, urinary, endocrine, and reproductive systems belong to Anatomy & Physiology II and are not covered here — though homeostasis and the structure-to-function relationship run through the whole course as the two unifying themes.

A note on content. This course studies the human body directly — anatomy, histology and dissection-style virtual imagery, and clinical examples of injury and disease. We treat all of it factually, clinically, and respectfully, the way health professionals do. If any topic is difficult for you personally, that's understandable — reach out and we'll find a way through it.

Learning Objectives

By the end of the course, you will be able to:

1. Use anatomical terminology correctly — directional terms, body planes and sections, cavities and regions — and explain the levels of structural organization, the characteristics of life, and how the body maintains homeostasis through feedback loops.
2. Relate the chemistry of life (atoms, bonds, water, pH/buffers and the biomolecules), cell structure and the organelles, membrane transport (diffusion, osmosis, tonicity, active transport), and overview-level cellular metabolism and protein synthesis to physiological function.
3. Identify the four primary tissue types and their subtypes by structure and location (histology), and describe the structure and homeostatic functions of the integumentary system.
4. Describe the skeletal system — bone tissue and microscopic/gross bone structure, ossification and remodeling, the axial and appendicular skeleton by region, and the classification and movements of joints.
5. Explain skeletal-muscle structure (the sarcomere) and the physiology of contraction — the sliding-filament mechanism and the ordered steps of excitation, coupling, contraction, and relaxation — and describe the organization of the muscular system, levers, and major muscles.
6. Explain the structure of nervous tissue (neurons and neuroglia) and the physiology of the nerve impulse — the resting membrane potential and the ordered phases of the action potential — and synaptic transmission.
7. Describe the organization of the nervous system — the central nervous system (brain and spinal cord, with the meninges, CSF, and reflex arcs) and the peripheral and autonomic nervous system (cranial and spinal nerves; somatic vs. autonomic; sympathetic vs. parasympathetic).
8. Explain the special senses — vision, hearing and equilibrium, taste, and smell — by relating the structure of each sensory organ to its function.

Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs)

• SLO A — Structure–function & homeostasis reasoning. Relate the structure of cells, tissues, and organs to their physiological function and to the maintenance of homeostasis, and trace feedback loops that restore balance.
• SLO B — Anatomical/physiological literacy & quantitative physiology. Use anatomical terminology correctly, identify structures and tissue types, and perform the basic quantitative reasoning of physiology — pH/buffers, concentration/osmolarity, and simple ratio/dosage math.

Required Materials

There is no required textbook, and you will pay nothing for course materials. Readings are delivered as links to external resources posted in each weekly module, and the weekly labs use free virtual anatomy/physiology resources or simple, low-cost at-home protocols (also linked). The reading load is intentionally light and is meant to support, not replace, the in-class work, the labs, and the practice.

You will need:

• A device with a web browser and internet access.
• Access to the free virtual anatomy/physiology resources used in the weekly labs — a virtual anatomy atlas / 3D anatomy viewer, a virtual microscope (for histology), and PhET simulations (all free and linked in the modules).
• A few inexpensive household items for the at-home lab weeks (e.g., a ruler/tape measure, a timer, a clock with a second hand; the specific list is in each lab).
• A basic calculator for the quantitative weeks (pH, osmolarity, dosage/ratio); your phone's calculator is fine.
• Access to one approved AI chatbot for the weekly Lecture Tutorials, adaptive activities, and the lab AI-critique moment (see the AI-Use Policy below).

Grading

Your course grade is the weighted total of the groups below. Weights sum to 100%.

Attendance is tracked at every session but is not weighted (see the Attendance Policy).

Per-item points: quizzes 10 · discussions 20 · assignments 100 · labs 50 · midterm & final 100 each.

Letter-Grade Scale

Many nursing and allied-health programs require a C or better (some require a B) in A&P I — check your program's requirement and aim above it.

Late & Make-Up Policy

• Late penalty: 10% per day. Submitted work loses 10 percentage points of its earned score for each day (or part of a day) it is late.
• Quizzes, the Midterm, and the Final are time-bound. Make-ups are arranged only for documented emergencies — contact Prof. Navarro as early as possible, ideally before the due date.
• Labs build on the week's system and are best done in the lab session or the same week; if you must miss lab, contact Prof. Navarro about a virtual make-up.
• Practice exercises are ungraded and exist for your benefit; the late penalty does not apply to them.
• If something serious is getting in the way of your work, reach out early. It is almost always easier to arrange support before a deadline than to repair a grade after it.

AI-Use Policy

This course requires you to use AI as a learning partner on your coursework, and it draws a clear line for the closed assessments. Read this section carefully.

Approved chatbots

You must use one of these three approved AI chatbots:

• Gemini
• Claude
• ChatGPT

The free tier of any of these is sufficient. You may pick whichever you prefer.

AI in this course (adaptive-learning activities)

Your Lecture Tutorials, Discussions, Assignments, and the AI-critique step of each weekly A&P Lab are adaptive-learning activities you complete with the chatbot:

• Weekly Lecture Tutorials — work through the week's ideas in conversation, then submit the conversation share link and your Completion Summary.
• Discussions — think a clinical/physiological question through in a real-time dialogue with the chatbot, then post the AI-generated summary plus your chat share link to the discussion board (and reply to peers).
• Assignments — solve AI-posed A&P problems and clinical scenarios with a chatbot coach that grades and teaches you as you go, then submit the coach's self-scored report (the line beginning STUDENT'S SCORE:) plus your chat share link.
• A&P Labs — after identifying structures or collecting your data, you'll ask the chatbot to label the figure or interpret the data, then catch its mistakes — a standing habit in this course, because chatbots routinely mislabel anatomical structures, pair the wrong function to a structure, miscompute physiology values, mis-order process steps, and confuse the directional terms or tissue types.

For all of these, the share link is part of your submission — treat the conversation as your work, keep it on-topic, and do your own thinking.

Permitted vs. not permitted

• AI may be used on your coursework — the Lecture Tutorials, Discussions, Assignments, Labs, and the ungraded Practice Exercises. (For the adaptive activities above, working with the chatbot is the activity.)
• AI may not be used on the Quizzes, the Midterm, or the Final — these are closed to AI and must be entirely your own work. Quizzes and exams are built from auto-gradable items and are meant to confirm that you know the anatomy and physiology — which matters, because your future patients will depend on it.

Disclosure

The adaptive activities (tutorials, discussions, assignments, labs) need no separate disclosure — the share link already documents your AI use. If you use an AI tool to help you think about any other graded work, add a one-line note stating which tool you used and how.

Alignment with academic integrity

Using AI as described here is encouraged and fully consistent with the integrity standard below. The violations are fabricating or doctoring a chat you submit, and using AI on the closed assessments (Quizzes, Midterm, Final). When in doubt, ask before you submit.

Attendance Policy

This is an in-person course with two lectures and one lab each week, and the in-class work — labeled-diagram walkthroughs, structure identification, think-pair-share, the lab investigations, and the AI-critique moments — is where much of the learning happens.

• Attendance is tracked at every session. It is not part of your weighted grade, but a strong attendance record is expected, and the lab in particular is hard to make up — consistent absence will show in your performance.
• Arrive on time, stay for the full session, and engage professionally with your classmates and instructor.
• If you must miss a session, notify Prof. Navarro in advance when possible and review the module materials to catch up. You remain responsible for any content, announcements, and due dates from a missed class.

Academic Integrity

You are expected to do your own work and to represent it honestly. Cheating, plagiarism, unauthorized collaboration, and submitting another's work — human or AI — as your own are violations of academic integrity and will be handled according to university policy, which may include a failing grade on the work or in the course. Collaboration is welcome where an assignment invites it; when in doubt about what is allowed, ask first. In a health-sciences course this matters twice over: holding to this standard is what makes your grade — and the clinical competence it represents — mean something.

Accessibility: Silver Oak University is committed to equal access. Students who need accommodations should contact the campus disability services office to arrange them; notify Prof. Navarro early in the term so supports can be in place. (Placeholder — institutions should insert their official accessibility, Title IX, and integrity statements here.)

Course Schedule — Fall 2026 (16 Weeks)

Term runs Aug 31 – Dec 18. Campus holidays: Labor Day (Sep 7), Veterans Day (Nov 11), Thanksgiving (Nov 26–27). Week 16 is reserved for finals. Dates are the Monday of each week.

Practice exercises and a Lecture Tutorial are part of every week's module; the table lists the graded touchpoints. Exam weeks (8 & 16) carry no weekly lab. The schedule may be adjusted with advance notice; changes will be announced in the course.