PHYSIOLOGY has long been recognized as a subject that is difficult for students to master. Medical students, in particular, often fail to appreciate the relevance of learning and understanding normal body functions for their clinical studies (11). Over the past two decades, there has been increasing recognition in the physiology education literature of how innovative interventions can be used to address such issues. Not only has the importance of teaching and learning styles been highlighted (7, 8, 11), but the need for greater student participation in the process to promote more active learning has also been called for (3, 6, 9). The medical curriculum is vast, and students are expected to learn many subjects at the same time. As a result, medical students often experience stress and find it difficult to cope with the curriculum. In addition, some first-year students find theory and practical classes to be monotonous. One of the difficulties faced by faculty members is, therefore, to maintain student interest in preclinical subjects, including physiology. In recent times, the medical curriculum has placed greater emphasis on aspects such as peer teaching, including working with interdisciplinary teams, using evidence-based practice, integrating clinical medicine at the start of their courses, and using biomedical informatics. At the Barao of Maua University Center, the subjects of human physiology for undergraduate courses in medicine are taught with care to ensure the continual participation of students during theoretical and practical lessons. Students are advised on the care that they should demonstrate during practical lessons with experimental animals and enlightened about the importance of using videos and computerized models as a substitute for animal models when possible. Students are also consistently encouraged to develop creative methods of presenting the contents discussed during theory lessons. The course on the physiology of the nervous system offered to undergraduate medical students occurs in the second semester of the school year. This course is part of the Nervous System study, which consists of neuroanatomy and neurophysiology and is taught with an integrated clinical vision by a neurologist. After the completion of the nervous system unit, students take the “Equipment and System l” course, in which they study embryology and cellular biology of the nervous system. The complexity of the nervous system is well established. When the physiological content of these systems is presented to first-year medical undergraduate students, great care is taken with respect to various important educational aspects. First, the functional events are presented to students during the expository/discursive theory lessons in a concise, objective manner. Second, for the medical course, even though it is for first-year students, the subject is presented in depth because its concepts are important for future subjects in basic as well as clinical areas. During the physiology theory lessons on transmission and synaptic interactions, the principal concepts addressed include characterizing chemical and electrical synapses, identifying the principal functional differences between the two types of synapses, discussing some functional events dependent on synaptic activity (principally neural and neuromuscular events), and correlating synaptic events with clinical and pharmacological situations. Description of methodology. To encourage students to actively take part in their learning process, a challenge was launched. After a presentation of the principal concepts cited above during the 50-min theoretical class, students were divided into three groups (n 20). Division of the groups was done by the Course Coordinators at the beginning of the semester and applied to the practical classes. Groups were then divided into four subgroups with five students each to aid in the dynamics of the tasks during the proposed activity. All subgroups received the same advice independently of each other. Subgroups were advised to present the main functions and differences between chemical and electrical synapses in a way that was different from how it was presented during the theory lesson, which was considered to be somewhat of a challenge for such a practical lesson. None of the subgroups could use audiovisual aids or present their results as a lecture or debate. Another suggestion given to the subgroups was that they should work secretly, or, rather, that the other subgroups should not know what was being prepared. The main objective was to stimulate creativity and student enjoyment. All groups had 15 days to develop their ideas and prepare their presentation. Subgroups were also advised that their presentations should be up to 15 min long and that the presentation order would be determined by ballot. Group presentations. The class was divided into three groups, as previously described; however, it was not possible for all groups to attend all presentations due to scheduling conflicts. The creativity of the students in all groups was unquestionable. The subject material was presented in extremely varied ways. There were theatrical, musical, poetic, and fairytale presentations as well as questions and answers, memory games, and dancing. Two of the subgroups that presented songs were interesting in distinct ways: students in the first subgroup wrote lyrics based on the functional mechanisms of chemical synapses and used music chosen from the common tastes of the members of the subgroup, and the second subgroup composed the song and lyrics based on the function of the electric synapses. Of the various presentations, two stood out most: the theatrical staging and the fairytale.