ShawneeDispatch.com

When first-grader Jordan Dean first learned she was going to take a walk through the body, she wasn’t thrilled at the idea.

“I though it would be weird,” she said. “I thought it would be really dark and gross.”

But after traveling through the brain, then through the mouth down to the stomach and through the intestines, she changed her mind.

“It’s not weird,” Jordan said. “It’s interesting and cool.”

Jordan learned about nutritious foods and exercise. She also learned about what smoke could do to lungs and how easy it is to pass germs. She, along with other Prairie Ridge Elementary School students, had the chance to go through Body Walk Wednesday.

The 35-foot by 40-foot walk-through display is an educational exhibit for elementary school students sponsored by the Kansas State Department of Education Child Nutrition and Wellness.

According to the Web site, www.bodywalk.org, the exhibit was developed because of the need to address good nutrition, physical activity and other healthy lifestyle choices.

Elementary schools have to sign up in the spring in order to reserve the Body Walk exhibit for the next school year.

Prairie Ridge physical education teacher Aubri Olson set up the Body Walk this year after she learned about the benefits of the exhibit.

“Our nurse knew about it, so she suggested that we apply for it last year,” she said.

The exhibit costs $1 per student with a minimum cost of $100 and a maximum cost of $300. Prairie Ridge funded the Body Walk exhibit through a PTA grant.

Schools are responsible for setting up, manning and taking down the exhibit.

Olson said about 15 parents helped set up the exhibit Tuesday night and then about 30 parents volunteered to present the different stages of the exhibit.

Olson said she got a large response from parent volunteers by sending out a letter and asking classroom teachers to help contact parents.

Students begin the body walk by entering through the ear canal into the head. They sat on squishy foam while strobe lights flickered on the walls of the head.

“See those strobe lights,” said volunteer Kari Schwartz. “Those represent messages that you are sending out all through your body.”

Schwartz also had the students feel the foam they were sitting on.

“That is how your brain feels,” she said.

Next students went to the lunchroom where they learned about the Food Pyramid and were assigned cards representing the different food groups.

In the mouth, the students learned about dental hygiene and the proper way to brush their teeth.

After checking their own pearly whites, the students headed down esophagus and into the stomach. From there, they journeyed through the small intestines where strips of plastic hung from the ceiling representing villi.

“Villi are tiny, tiny pieces of hair,” said volunteer Terri Hanna. “What those villi do it sucks all the good nutrients out of the small intestines.”

Next the students went on to the heart where they learned how fat from foods can block the arteries and make it difficult for blood to get through.

“What do we need to do to keep our heart healthy?” volunteer Lucia Roe asked students.

“We need to eat healthy and keep it safe,” first-grader Lindsey Edwards said.

In the lungs the students learned about the effects of smoking and volunteer Jill Hoffman showed the students two sets of real lungs. One set was healthy and the other was a smoker’s lungs.

“Eww,” the students said when Hoffman held up the bag of smoker’s lungs.

The next station was all about bones.

“Reach up and feel your earlobes,” said volunteer DeDe Schamberger. “What do they feel like?”

“They’re squishy,” said first-grader Kham Garnand. “That’s because they don’t have any bones.”

Schamberger said Kham was right.

“If we didn’t have any bones, that is what your whole body would feel like,” she said.

After learning about muscles and skin, the students walked through a hall and went over the lessons they learned.

Kham said his favorite part was in the mouth.

“I saw rotten teeth and I brushed the teeth we were sitting on,” he said.

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