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Human Anatomy and Physiology I

15 instructional weeks + finals week (Week 1–Week 16) Free sample edition

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This is a complete course: fifteen instructional weeks and a finals week, every student component, built with The Course Maker and ready to import. Weeks are relative (Week 1 to Week 16); you set the dates when you import it. Browse the whole thing below. Click any piece to read it in full, then click back to return here.

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Free sample edition. No instructor, institution, or term identity appears anywhere in this edition, by design. The syllabus carries fill-in slots (instructor name, contact, office hours, institution policies) for the adopting instructor to make it their own. (Original objectives written from the standard Human Anatomy and Physiology I body of knowledge; not copied from any school's course outline.)

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Kept current every term: fresh assessment variants, every link re-checked and the dead ones replaced, and the subject brought up to date where it has moved.
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Included in every course

ChapterRequired
Required in every course. Every module presents the same content in three ways — a chapter to read, a slide deck with speaker notes, and captioned videos — so each student can choose how to take it in. The course is designed to reflect UDL's multiple means of representation, and the alignment report describes this to your curriculum committee.
Slide deck with speaker notesRequired
Required in every course. Every module presents the same content in three ways — a slide deck with speaker notes, a chapter to read, and captioned videos — so each student can choose how to take it in. The course is designed to reflect UDL's multiple means of representation, and the alignment report describes this to your curriculum committee.
Captioned video linksRequired
Required in every course. Every module presents the same content in three ways — captioned videos, a chapter to read, and a slide deck with speaker notes — so each student can choose how to take it in. The course is designed to reflect UDL's multiple means of representation, and the alignment report describes this to your curriculum committee. We link videos only when a caption track exists (from the creator or generated automatically), and we never host them.

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The syllabus

Policies, schedule, and grading

Read the full course syllabusPolicies, the week-by-week schedule, grading, and the bring-your-own-AI rules, with fill-in slots for the adopting instructor.→

Weighted gradebook

Assignment groups & weights

Configured in the export — the gradebook is set the moment the course is imported.

Assignment group	Weight	Notes
Tutorials & Practice	10%
Quizzes	10%
Workshops	20%
Assignments	25%
Discussions	15%
Exams	20%
Total	100%	Letter Standard

Objectives & outcomes

What students will be able to do

Objective 1

Use the language of the body correctly — the anatomical position, the directional-term pairs, the three body planes, and the body cavities and abdominal regions — distinguish anatomy from physiology, climb the levels of structural organization, list the functions and requirements of human life, and trace a homeostatic feedback loop through its receptor, control center, and effector, telling negative feedback from positive feedback.

Objective 2

Relate the chemistry of the body to its function — atoms and the three bond types, water's properties, the logarithmic pH scale with the blood's buffered range, and the four classes of organic compounds — and explain the cell's membrane, organelles, and transport (diffusion, osmosis and tonicity, active transport, and bulk transport), the overview of how a cell makes ATP, and how a gene is read into a protein.

Objective 3

Identify the four primary tissue types and their subtypes from their structural features, name an epithelium by its layers and cell shape, and describe the layers, accessory structures, and homeostatic functions of the integumentary system, including thermoregulation as a negative-feedback loop.

Objective 4

Describe bone as a living tissue — its functions, the gross and microscopic anatomy of a long bone, the four bone cells, ossification, growth, remodeling, and the calcium-homeostasis loop — and sort the skeleton into its axial and appendicular divisions by region while classifying joints by structure, function, and movement.

Objective 5

Explain skeletal-muscle structure from the whole muscle to the sarcomere, the sliding-filament model, and the ordered steps of excitation, contraction, and relaxation at the neuromuscular junction and inside the fiber, and describe the organization of the muscular system — origin and insertion, muscle teams, lever classes, and the major muscles by region and action.

Objective 6

Describe the structure of neurons and neuroglia and explain the physiology of the nerve impulse — the resting membrane potential, the ordered phases of the action potential with the ion that drives each, the all-or-none principle, saltatory conduction, and chemical transmission across a synapse.

Objective 7

Describe the organization of the nervous system — the brain's major regions and their functions, the spinal cord, the meninges, cerebrospinal fluid, and the reflex arc in the central nervous system; the cranial and spinal nerves, afferent and efferent traffic, and the somatic and autonomic divisions in the peripheral nervous system; and the opposing sympathetic and parasympathetic branches as a homeostatic pair.

Objective 8

Explain the special senses — vision, hearing and equilibrium, taste, and smell — by tracing each stimulus through the structures of its sense organ to the receptor that converts it into a nerve signal, and relate the structure of each organ to its function.

SLO A

Structure, function, and homeostasis — connect the structure of a cell, tissue, organ, or organ system to its physiological function, state a physiological process as an ordered sequence, and trace a feedback loop that returns a variable toward its set point.

SLO B

Anatomical literacy and quantitative physiology — use anatomical terminology and the anatomical position correctly, identify structures and tissue types from their features, and work the course's quantitative pockets (the pH step, tonicity from concentrations, the membrane-potential values, a measured heart rate or reaction time) with every step shown and every value carrying its unit.

How this course is built — read this first

Every teaching module carries the same set, in the order a student meets it: a Start Here overview, the chapter (the primary reading), the lecture (titled “Lecture: <module title>”), the slide deck with speaker notes, readings & resources (links only), the lecture tutorial and practice exercises worked with an AI tutor, the quiz, the discussion and the assignment, and the weekly A&P Lab & Inquiry. Exams: the midterm in Week 8 and the final in Week 16, a finals week with no module.

The discussion and the assignment each ship in both formats: the adaptive version is the published, graded item, and its traditional alternative (no AI) is a separate item that ships unpublished beside it. An instructor who prefers the traditional format publishes it and unpublishes or deletes the adaptive one.

What you see here is every student page. The instructor pack (answer keys and worked solutions, rubric calibration, image prompts, audio-brief scripts, and the alignment report) ships only in the download, never on this site.

Adaptive and traditional

Discussions & assignments: both formats in every module

Same learning objective either way; what changes is how the work happens.

Adaptive · published

Work it through with an approved chatbot

The student does the work in a guided conversation with an approved chatbot, using a copy-paste prompt the course provides. For a discussion, the AI is a Socratic partner that challenges their thinking and never writes the post. For an assignment, the AI is a coach: it asks questions, checks the reasoning shown, and waits for the student to revise. The student submits the chat link with the required summary or report.

Traditional alternative (no AI) · unpublished

The familiar way, one click away

The student does the work themselves and submits it, and the instructor grades it against the rubric. No AI required. It ships unpublished, opening with a one-line note to the instructor; publish it instead of the adaptive version if you prefer.

All 16 weeks

Every week, every component

Each week is a heading; every component under it links to the full student page. Week 8 is a teaching module that also carries the midterm bundle; Week 16 is the finals week, with the final exam bundle and no module.

Week 1

Body Organization, Homeostasis & Anatomical Terminology

anatomy (structure) vs. physiology (function) and the spine of the course — structure determines function, read as structure, then function, then the clinical connection; the functions and the requirements of human lifethe levels of structural organization in order (chemical, cellular, tissue, organ, organ system, organism) and the eleven organ systems namedhomeostasis — set point, normal range, receptor, control center, effector; negative feedback reverses a change and positive feedback amplifies it (childbirth, clotting); the pinned body-temperature loop worked on the illustrative readings 36.0, 37.0, and 38.5 °Cthe anatomical position as the reference for every directional term; the five directional pairs; the three planes; the dorsal and ventral cavities with the diaphragm as the divider; the abdominal quadrants and regions; the Map the Body lab

Week 2

The Chemistry of Life

atoms and elements — protons define the element; oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, and nitrogen as the body's four most abundant elements; ionic (transfer), covalent (share; polar vs. nonpolar), and hydrogen (weak, between molecules) bondswater's polarity and the properties that follow — solvent, heat capacity, lubricant, reactant — and why water is up to about 60% of an adult's body masspH as an inverse logarithmic scale with a tenfold step per unit, worked once on the pinned pair (pH 4 vs. 7 is three steps, 1,000 times); acids, bases, and buffers; the blood's defended range 7.35 to 7.45 with acidosis and alkalosis as the named departures; the Measuring Acidity labthe four classes of organic compounds and their building blocks; a protein's shape decides its job; ATP as the cell's spendable energy

Week 3

The Cell & Membrane Transport

the plasma membrane as a phospholipid bilayer studded with proteins, selectively permeable; the organelle tour as structure to function (nucleus, ribosome, rough and smooth ER, Golgi apparatus, mitochondrion, lysosome, cytoskeleton, cilia and flagella)passive transport — simple diffusion, facilitated diffusion, osmosis (water toward the side with more solute) — and active transport against the gradient at the cost of ATP, with the sodium-potassium pump moving 3 Na⁺ out and 2 K⁺ in per ATP; endocytosis and exocytosistonicity read from the cell's side on the pinned tonicity table (a 300 mOsm/L model cell in 100, 300, and 500 mOsm/L baths: swells, stays the same, shrinks) and the dilution rule C₁V₁ = C₂V₂; why an IV fluid is isotonicthe Which Way Does the Water Go? lab on a free membrane simulation

Week 4

Cellular Energy & Protein Synthesis (overview)

ATP as spendable currency, not a battery — ATP to ADP plus phosphate releases energy and food recharges itcellular respiration as an ordered, located overview — glycolysis (cytoplasm; net 2 ATP; no oxygen needed) → the citric acid cycle, also called the Krebs cycle (mitochondrial matrix; CO₂ released) → the electron transport chain (inner mitochondrial membrane; oxygen the final electron acceptor; the most ATP); the total ATP yield taught in words as a revised estimate (an older figure of about 36; current estimates of about 30 to 32) and never keyed; the anaerobic pathway to lactic acid in a sprintfrom gene to protein in order and with locations — transcription writes an mRNA in the nucleus, translation reads it at the ribosome; a codon is three mRNA bases for one amino acid; the pinned gene decoded (Met–Ala–His–Lys–Gly, then stop) with every codon read from the supplied standard tablewhy physiology cares — proteins are the enzymes, channels, pumps, and contractile fibers of every system; the Decode the Gene lab

Week 5

Tissues

a tissue as similar cells on one job; histology; the four primary tissue types and their verbs — epithelial covers, connective supports, muscle moves, nervous communicates — and an organ as a combination of themepithelium's signatures (packed cells, apical and basal polarity, a basement membrane, avascular) and its two-word name — layers (simple, stratified) × shape (squamous, cuboidal, columnar) — read as structure to function (simple squamous in the alveoli; stratified squamous in the skin); exocrine vs. endocrine glandsconnective tissue as scattered cells in an abundant matrix of ground substance and fibers; the subtypes — loose, dense (tendons and ligaments), adipose, cartilage, bone, and blood as a fluid connective tissue; the three muscle types told apart (striations, control, intercalated discs); nervous tissue named; the four tissue membranesthe Read the Slide lab on a free virtual microscope with the pinned tissue-identification key

Week 6

The Integumentary System

the skin as the body's largest organ built from all four tissues; the epidermis as keratinized stratified squamous epithelium that is avascular; the dermis as the vascular connective-tissue core with its papillary and reticular layers; the hypodermis below the skin properthe epidermal strata in order, deep to superficial — basale, spinosum, granulosum, lucidum (thick skin only), corneum — four layers in thin skin and five in thick; keratin (toughness) vs. melanin (pigment and UV shield); keratinocytes and melanocytesthe accessory structures — hair and the arrector pili, nails, sebaceous glands and sebum, eccrine and apocrine sweat glands — and the skin's functions (protection, sensation, thermoregulation, vitamin D synthesis, excretion in small amounts)thermoregulation as the Week 1 loop run on the skin — sweat evaporation and vasodilation against overheating, vasoconstriction and goosebumps against cold; the Read the Skin lab

Week 7

The Skeletal System: Bone Tissue & Structure

the six functions of the skeletal system and bone as a living connective tissue; bones classified by shape (long, short, flat, irregular, sesamoid)the gross anatomy of a long bone as a labeled figure — diaphysis, epiphysis, epiphyseal plate and line, articular cartilage, periosteum, endosteum, medullary cavitymicroscopic bone — the osteon of compact bone (concentric lamellae, a central canal, osteocytes in lacunae, canaliculi) vs. the trabeculae and red marrow of spongy bone; the bone cells — osteoblasts build, osteoclasts resorb, osteocytes maintain, osteogenic cells replenishendochondral and intramembranous ossification, lengthening at the growth plate, remodeling in response to load, and the calcium-homeostasis loop with parathyroid hormone and calcitonin named only as the feedback example; the Build a Bone lab

Week 8 Midterm

Midterm Review & Exam

cumulative review of Weeks 1 to 7 organized by the one distinction and the one ordered read each topic asks for: anatomy vs. physiology, negative vs. positive feedback, the thumb lateral from the anatomical position, sagittal vs. frontal, the tenfold pH step, hypotonic vs. hypertonic from the cell's side, glycolysis → citric acid cycle → electron transport chain, transcription before translation, epithelial packed vs. connective scattered, the epidermis avascular, osteoblast vs. osteoclastthe three-step read of any structure — name it, state its function, name the clinical connection in standard terms and stop (light new material that carries the second half's systems)the midterm exam

The midterm exam bundle

Week 9

The Skeleton & Joints

the adult skeleton's 206 bones in two divisions — the axial 80 (skull, vertebral column, thoracic cage) and the appendicular 126 (girdles and limbs); the girdles are appendicularthe axial skeleton by region — the skull's 22 bones, the vertebral column as 7 cervical, 12 thoracic, 5 lumbar plus the sacrum and coccyx, the thoracic cage's 12 pairs of ribs and the sternum; the appendicular skeleton by region — humerus, radius (lateral, thumb side) and ulna, carpals, metacarpals, phalanges; femur, patella, tibia (medial, weight-bearing) and fibula, tarsals, metatarsals, phalanges; 30 bones per limbjoints classified by structure (fibrous, cartilaginous, synovial) and function (synarthrosis, amphiarthrosis, diarthrosis); the parts of a synovial joint; the six synovial types with their examples; the movement pairs (flexion and extension, abduction and adduction, rotation, circumduction)the mobility-vs-stability trade-off (the shoulder's shallow socket vs. the hip's deep one); the Build the Skeleton, Name the Joints lab

Week 10

Muscle Tissue & the Physiology of Contraction

the skeletal-muscle hierarchy — muscle, fascicle, fiber, myofibril, sarcomere — with the sarcomere as the contractile unit between two Z discs; thin filaments are actin and thick filaments are myosin; the sarcolemma, T-tubules, and sarcoplasmic reticulumthe sliding-filament model, taught as a model — the thin filaments slide past the thick ones and the sarcomere shortens while the filaments keep their length (the A band stays constant); Huxley and Niedergerke and Huxley and Hanson (1954) placed factuallythe ordered steps of excitation-contraction coupling — ACh at the neuromuscular junction → muscle action potential down the T-tubules → Ca²⁺ released from the sarcoplasmic reticulum → Ca²⁺ binds troponin and tropomyosin uncovers actin → cross-bridge and power stroke with ATP; ATP is also needed to detach the head (rigor mortis) and to pump Ca²⁺ back for relaxationmotor units and fiber types as an overview; fatigue read on the pinned grip-count series (24, 21, 18, 15, 12; average 18; a 50% decline); the Feel the Fatigue lab

Week 11

The Muscular System

origin (the fixed bone) vs. insertion (the bone that moves); a muscle only pulls; agonist, antagonist, synergist, and fixator as roles relative to the movement; isotonic vs. isometric contractionmuscle-naming logic — location, shape, size, action, number of origins, fiber direction — used to predict an unfamiliar musclebones and joints as levers — first, second, and third class named by what sits in the middle; the third-class lever as the body's common design; the force-vs-speed trade-off worked on the pinned illustrative forearm lever (a 60 N load at 36 cm against a 4 cm effort arm needs 540 N)the major muscles by region and action (deltoid, pectoralis major, biceps and triceps brachii, rectus abdominis, gluteus maximus, quadriceps and hamstrings, gastrocnemius, tibialis anterior); the Name the Muscle, Name the Action lab

Week 12

Nervous Tissue, the Neuron & the Action Potential

the neuron as structure to function — dendrites receive, the cell body integrates, the axon conducts from the axon hillock to the terminals, myelin insulates and the nodes of Ranvier let the signal jump; the neuroglia of the CNS (astrocytes, oligodendrocytes, microglia, ependymal cells) and PNS (Schwann and satellite cells)the resting membrane potential of about −70 mV with the inside negative, held by the ion gradients and the 3 Na⁺ out, 2 K⁺ in pump; the pump vs. the gated channelsthe action potential as a gradable order — rest (about −70 mV) → depolarization (Na⁺ in, threshold about −55 mV, peak about +30 mV) → repolarization (K⁺ out) → hyperpolarization → rest — with the pinned arithmetic (15 mV to threshold; a 100 mV upstroke); the all-or-none principle; saltatory conduction and myelin; Hodgkin and Huxley placed factuallychemical transmission across the synapse in order (Ca²⁺ enters the terminal, vesicles release the neurotransmitter, it crosses the cleft and binds receptors); the pinned reaction-time ruler drop (18, 22, 19, 21, 20 cm; average 20 cm, about 0.20 s); the Watch a Neuron Fire lab

Week 13

The Central Nervous System

the CNS as the brain and spinal cord; gray matter (cell bodies) vs. white matter (myelinated axons); the cerebrum's four lobes and their functions — frontal (movement, planning, personality, speech production), parietal (touch and body sense), temporal (hearing and memory), occipital (vision) — with gyri and sulcithe cerebellum (coordination, balance, posture), the thalamus (the sensory relay for every sense but smell) vs. the hypothalamus (homeostasis), and the brainstem — midbrain, pons, medulla — with the medulla's cardiovascular and respiratory centersprotecting the CNS — the meninges in order, outer to inner (dura mater, arachnoid mater, pia mater), the subarachnoid space, and cerebrospinal fluid made by the choroid plexus in the four ventricles (cushion, buoyancy, waste removal)the reflex arc in order (receptor → sensory neuron → integration in the spinal cord → motor neuron → effector) and why a reflex is faster than a decision; the Map the Brain lab

Week 14

The Peripheral & Autonomic Nervous System

the PNS as everything outside the brain and spinal cord — 12 pairs of cranial nerves and 31 pairs of spinal nerves (8 cervical, 12 thoracic, 5 lumbar, 5 sacral, 1 coccygeal), spinal nerves as mixed nerves; the vagus nerve (cranial nerve X)afferent (sensory, toward the CNS) vs. efferent (motor, away from it); somatic (voluntary, skeletal muscle) vs. autonomic (involuntary; cardiac muscle, smooth muscle, glands)sympathetic (fight-or-flight; thoracolumbar; norepinephrine at most targets) vs. parasympathetic (rest-and-digest; craniosacral; acetylcholine) as an antagonistic pair on the same organs — heart rate, pupils, airways, digestion — whose balance is homeostasisthe pinned heart-rate table (resting 62, right after activity 98, one minute later 72 beats per minute; a rise of 36) read as the two branches trading control; the Reading Your Own Autopilot lab

Week 15

The Special Senses

receptor classes — chemoreceptor, mechanoreceptor, photoreceptor, thermoreceptor, nociceptor — and the two jobs of every sense organ: capture the stimulus, convert it to a nerve signalthe eye in the order light travels — cornea → pupil → lens → retina — with the cornea and lens focusing, the iris sizing the pupil, the lens accommodating, rods (dim light, no color) vs. cones (color; packed at the fovea), and the optic disc as the blind spotthe ear outside in — pinna and canal → tympanic membrane → malleus → incus → stapes → oval window → cochlea and its hair cells (hearing) — and the semicircular canals and vestibule (equilibrium) on the vestibulocochlear nervetaste (five basic tastes: sweet, sour, salty, bitter, umami) and smell as chemoreception, and why flavor is mostly smell; the Test Your Own Senses lab (the blind spot, taste without smell, the atlas identification)

Week 16 · finals week Final

Finals week

No module this week: the final exam bundle