Co-op Spotlight: Megan Davitsky and Kaija Donaldson

Anatomy Lab, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario

Ages: 20

Program: Kinesiology and health sciences, University of Waterloo 

Year: 3

Length of co-op: Two four-month terms

Megan Davitsky and Kaija Donaldson met during their first co-op term at the University ofWaterloo’s Anatomy Lab, where they developed an outreach curriculum for schools together. The lab asked them to come back for a second term to deliver the program to area schools.

Megan: I went into the Anatomy Lab for the first time in my first year at university, and I was really scared. It’s a human cadaver lab, so I thought, I don’t know if I’m going to be able to handle this. But by the end of the term I was totally fine with it. I continued to volunteer and teach and then, eventually, work in the lab.

Kaija: We were both hired as kinesiology instructional support from January to April of 2023. Our job was to help out with the first-year anatomy course. 

Megan: But in our first week our supervisor said, “We want to do workshops in schools. Can you figure that out?” So we had to work together to come up with a plan. What do we want to teach? How are we going to teach it? What do we need to bring with us to do it?

Kaija: We started brainstorming and eventually developed a program that we were able to pilot in April, which led us to a second co-op term here in the fall. We go into equity-deserving schools in the community to teach our workshop. 

Megan: We have this little craft box that we bring with us to elementary schools. We ask students to trace out their hand with construction paper, and glue on straws in the pattern of the bones in the hand. Then you slip strings through each bone. When you pull on the strings, it makes the hand move. 

For high schools, we bring sets of human skeleton models, completely disassembled. Then, we ask students to assemble them using their own bodies as a guide and try to figure out where things should go. We’ve probably done 30 to 40 visits so far. 

Kaija: It’s been really rewarding. It’s different from learning the material from a textbook or a teacher talking. When we present a hands-on physical model and see that flick of a switch when a student understands something—that’s amazing. 

Megan: We’ve developed a third course that we’re going to pilot soon and pass off to the next co-ops that are coming in. We have a third co-op left in our program, but I’d like to do it in a clinical setting.

Kaija: Same. My end goal is physiotherapy, but I would be happy doing a co-op in chiropractic, physiotherapy or occupational therapy. The environment here is student-driven, so I’d like to work in a public setting where I get to deal with a range of people, like kids, the elderly, middle-aged people, et cetera. 

Megan: I want to get a co-op position in a hospital to see how a massive medical environment like that is run and how I can fit into it. Eventually, I want to go into med school. I’d love to work in an emergency room. —As told to Claire Gagne