Mom and Dad, were your children telling you about being swallowed up and traveling through a body? Well, that is true in part. Lincoln Elementary School with students grades Kindergarten through 5th grade was one of the first schools in our area to go through the updated inflatable educational exhibit owned and operated by the Kansas State Department of Education’s Child Nutrition and Wellness (CNW) team on Tuesday, September 19.
Body Venture has been around since September, 2002, and this is the 20th year that students have learned the importance of proper nutrition and physical activity. LES has had the exhibit in the past but this was the first visit to our school for the new model. The 1,200-1,300 pound, 40-foot by 45-foot inflatable exhibit was set up in Lincoln Elementary School’s gymnasium on Monday evening, September 18. “Getting this exhibit set up and taken down would not have been possible without the help of our Lincoln Leopard Football Team”, stated Norma Kobbeman, Authorized Food Service Representative for USD 298 Lincoln. “When LES students came into the gym that next day and the exhibit was getting inflated, you could see the excitement on their faces. They loved it,” Kobbeman said.
It took many volunteers, not only for setting the exhibit up and down, but to be station presenters at 11 stations while engaging students to focus on healthy choices. Students enter the school “lunchroom” and become a food – a carrot, strawberry, or a piece of cheese. In the second station, they walk through a giant ear into the brain where they learned about brain waves and brain function. The “foods” step into the larger-than-life mouth, are swallowed and then travel through the esophagus and into the stomach dome. From there, students travel through the small intestine becoming nutrients that are absorbed into the blood stream. The nutrients then follow the path of nutrients to the heart, lungs, bones, muscles and skin stations. Throughout the exhibit, students learn how to apply the Body Venture Motto: EAT SMART. PLAY HARD. Lastly, the students exit the “body” through a cut in the skin and proceed through Body Venture’s Pathway to Life. In this last station, healthy concepts from each of the other stations are recapped. Maddison Adams, USD 298 School Nurse, supports providing children with information and tools needed to succeed and achieve at school. “Body Venture is a wonderful way to help show students the need for proper nutrition, good health, and to EAT SMART. PLAY HARD,” she stated.
Two Lincoln Elementary students were selected as Outstanding Students during the exhibit. Harper Zachgo, 4th grade, and Kaiden Swisher, 2nd grade, received a bike helmet donated by the CNW team.
Thank you to volunteers from the Bank of Tescott, Citizens State Bank, Tasha Jablonski, LHS Anatomy and Physiology Class along with teacher Breanna Brown, USD 298 Board of Education member, Jeana Eckhart, and LES staff for making this an exciting lesson for our elementary students about nutrition.
