Heartwheels!

Heartwheels! STEM Mobile Outreach is a portable mini-version of the Advanced Heart Failure Research Program  that travels to schools and the community to engage aspiring young people and their families in the experiential cardiovascular sciences, to promote the importance of heart-healthy living, to spark interest and curiosity in the STEM fields, and to demonstrate that science can be fun!  

The hands-on interactive and educational activities provided by Heartwheels! include:

  • Cardiac anatomy, heart dissection, and learning about heart-healthy living.
  • Learning about the cardiovascular system and how blood pressure and blood flow work by manipulating our one-of-a-kind instrumented and calibrated mock flow loop.
  • “World Tour of Cardiac Devices”: learning about and interacting with a huge assortment of real cardiovascular devices used to treat patients with heart disease, including ventricular assist devices, mechanical and bioprosthetic heart valves, stents, pacemakers, occluders, and total artificial hearts.

To date, more than 10,000 people of all ages have participated in the Heartwheels! outreach events.

Heartwheels! in the news:

Contact Us

Gretel Monreal PhD 
Co-Director
gretel.monreal@louisville.edu

Steven C. Koenig PhD 
Co-Director
steven.koenig@louisville.edu

Heartwheels! STEM Mobile Outreach is supported in part by a National Science Foundation KY EPSCoR Education, Communication, and Outreach grant and an Athey Science Education and Outreach grant. We thank our friends at the Kentucky Science Center (Louisville, KY) for the fantastic partnership and support. We also thank Medtronic (Minneapolis, MN), Edwards Lifesciences (Irvine, CA), Abbott (Abbott Park, IL), Boston Scientific (Marlborough, MA), Corcym (Milan, Italy), and PulseMDM (Holland, PA) for donating supplies.

Image of Drs. Monreal and Koenig at Heartwheels table

Participating children showing projects

Students working with a heart