IGERT trainee John Capano visited the Paul Cuffee Charter School twice during the fall of 2015. With the focus on highschool students John Capano assisted with the lecture on muscle function and physiology, and helped run small group experiments testing how fatigue and temperature affect muscle contraction capacity and speed.
During his second visit he presented a lecture to discuss the evolution of the vertebrate body plan, which gave a quick overview of the evolutionary history and physiologies of fish, mammals, birds, lizards, and dinosaurs. In particular, the lecture focused on the variations in the cardiovascular system and how they related to performance and metabolic rates, which was the material being covered during that week. He also brought in fixed specimens of an alligator and axolotl to show students the variations in body plans and lend a more hands on feel to the material.