Rachael Golden/The Gazette While attending a summer science program sponsored by Bethesda's American Physiological Society, Montgomery Blair High School teacher Leslie Van works on an experiment to test how the radius of blood vessels affects blood flow.

Elvis needs to cut down on the grilled peanut butter and banana sandwiches.

That's what Montgomery Blair High School teacher Leslie Van and her group members determined after conducting "the Elvis experiment" July 27 at a forum held by the American Physiological Society. Elvis wasn't really in the building, but the teachers recreated his "body" with tubes and beakers to see how fat and plaque might have affected the way his system worked.

Van, 26, attended the conference with other middle and high school teachers across the country as part of Bethesda-based APS' "Frontiers in Physiology," a professional development program for teachers.

Twenty teachers are participating in the program, which has allowed them to spend time in research labs during the summer as well as attend a conference in San Francisco and last week's research forum at the Airlie Center in Warrenton, Va., where they learned research and teaching techniques.

Van and her group members, Greg McCurdy and George Potter of Indiana, used different sized tubes, beakers, funnels and water to simulate Elvis' veins and arteries. They were testing his blood pressure, seeing how fast water flowed through different sized tubes. Other groups tested blood's thickness with corn syrup and if that affected how blood flowed through the tubes; others tested how tube length affected the fluid flowing through it.

When time was up, Lubbock, Texas, resident Cathy Box, who participated in the program last year, led the teachers--now the pupils--in a discussion about their experiments and asked them to share their results.

"What we're going to do now is compare our data," Box told the group. One by one, group spokesmen put transparencies on projectors, explained their hypotheses and results, much like their students would.

Van's group concluded Elvis' plaque--thicker tubing--affected his blood flow and how they came to their conclusions. They thought about their results, just like they wanted their students to do.

Frontiers in Physiology focuses on inquiry, said Olney resident Marsha Matyas, APS' director of educational programs. Inquiry science is often open-ended and not "cookbook," she said, and the process used to come to conclusions is just as important as the result itself.

Inquiry science is more student-centered, Matyas said, and shows students how to set up an experiment, showing them that science experiments don't typically have set outcomes, and that outcomes change based on how you conduct the experiment. Instead of the answers, teachers focus more on the skills students learn.

"You get different perspectives on science," Matyas said. "You give students the idea that science is learning how to think."

But you have to transfer the concept of inquiry learning to teachers, who face some barriers when it comes to teaching science.

"We've become so programmed because of the state testing--not just Maryland, all the states," Matyas said. "Standardized testing is starting to drive the curriculum rather than student learning."

APS is working to teach science instructors how to teach their students by inquiry. The program began in March, Matyas said. It will continue through the year, ending in December, with the teachers turning in laboratory experiments they design themselves and reviewing science-related Web sites.

Van, a Germantown resident who teaches Matter and Energy and Anatomy and Physiology at Blair, has spent her summer at Walter Reed's Army Institute of Research in Forest Glen studying the West Nile and dengue viruses. It's been her first real experience working in a lab.

Most of the teachers, Matyas said, have no lab experience.

Van, who has taught at Blair for four years, has been studying the viruses and though she can't take the experiments back to her classes--taking viruses into the school would be both difficult and somewhat dangerous--she can talk about her research experience in class. Viruses are a topic during the genetics unit she teaches in her anatomy class.

"I can say, 'This is something I worked on this summer," Van said, adding she'll also have more resources available to her. For example, one of her summer colleagues may be able to visit her classroom.

Van's lab experience has been interesting, and she said it's reminded her of what it's like to be a student--sometimes that first experience trying something new is daunting.

"At the beginning of the summer it's intimidating because there's so much stuff," she said, adding that she was nervous about breaking things. However, she said, she realized that "if you mess something up, it's pretty easy to fix."

Van will continue working at Walter Reed through the summer, then go back to Blair to teach and continue her work with APS' program. She will design an experiment--"we test it on our kids to see if it works"--and turn it in to APS in December, she said. She'll also share her experience with colleagues, many of whom she said are interested in hearing about her laboratory time and learning more about inquiry science.

"I think the idea of inquiry is extremely important in teaching kids how to think, how to analyze what they see," Van said.

Van said she's always liked science and loved dissecting worms and starfish as a child.

"Ever since I was a kid, science has been my thing," she said. "Biology especially. Biology is something I could connect with a lot easier."

Van thinks that's the case for her--as well as some of her students--because you can often relate better to things you can actually see, with a physical connection.

For instance, she said, "you can't see gravity, but you can see your heart beating."

Just like she could see, during her morning experiment, that Elvis needed to go on a diet.

"That," Van said, "I could take back to my kids."