Eight Butler University students from four colleges collaborated over the past year to release a children’s book on asthma.
“He Huffed and He Puffed But…A Tale of a Wolf with Asthma,” follows Tim BurWulf, a wolf who runs out of breath when trying to blow down the three little pigs’ houses.
Aimed at children ages five to 11, the book looks to educate children about asthma symptoms and control.
Two students from four separate Colleges-—the Jordan College of the Arts, College of Business, College of Education and the College of Pharmacy Health and Sciences—started collaborating last summer to come up with a storyline, graphics and vision for the book.
“The coolest thing I’ve seen as a professor on this project is that you’re bringing together four different colleges with four different sets of expertise to teach each other about what it is they’ve been studying on campus for the past four to six years,” said Erin Albert, an adviser for the book and assistant pharmacy professor.
This book follows last year’s children’s book “Pharmacy and Me,” which was produced in the same fashion out of the College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences “Senior Projects” course.
This year, COB students were added to the mix.
“The COB students have really driven the project from a project management perspective,” Albert said. “Last year we didn’t have that element added in, and they’ve been an amazing addition.”
Sophomore Taylor Cox, who was an art major last year, worked on the project’s digital design aspects.
A fellow art major drew the sketches and designs on plain paper with a Sharpie. Cox scanned the image into the computer, digitally redrew it, then added all of the color in.
“It’s so relieving to actually see the hard copy there and know we’ve put so much time into something that’s looking to be pretty successful,” Cox said. “It’s all been so worth it.”
COE majors contributed the expertise of writing through a child’s lens, Albert said.
“I think writers are leaders,” Albert said. “They are shaping the content they’re providing to a wider audience.”
Pharmacy students contributed their medical knowledge of asthma and made sure it was portrayed correctly in the text.
“The thing about pharmacy in particular is all pharmacists are educators,” Albert said. “Whether they’re communicating orally to a patient about a new prescription or they’re communicating in writing, they’re educating their audience.”
Albert said the projects are important to student experiences at Butler.
“In the real world you’re going to work with people that are not like you,” Albert said. “It’s important to have interdisciplinary projects available to students before they graduate with a tangible outcome like a publication. That way you’re getting students to work with people not like them, so they can learn how to educate others in what they’ve been studying here at Butler.”
The book is available in hard copy at the Butler Bookstore and is available as an e-book for sale on Amazon.com and on the Barnes & Noble website.
