Holding a small plastic skull in his hand, Chris Schultz looked closely at the eye sockets. The kindergartner then lifted the top.

“That’s where the brain goes,” Ronda Geddings, a school volunteer, explained to him Monday.

“I have a brain in here,” said Jack Welcher, another kindergartner, pointing at his own head.

The two Kennedy School students were in the “bones” area of the Body Walk, a traveling educational exhibit for students in grades K-5 sponsored by the Kansas State Department of Education.

Katy Huerter, Body Walk manager, said this is the program’s fifth year. Any school – public, parochial or private – can request the exhibit.

“It’s a hands-on experience of how all the different body parts work,” said Susan Butterfield, a Kennedy physical education teacher. “It’s so important for kids to eat right and be active.”

The Body Walk project was set up in the gymnasium at Kennedy, 1605 Davis Road, and staffed by about 25 volunteers. Its main message was “Eat smart. Play hard.”

The students started in the “brain” station. They then proceeded through various stations as they followed the path of food: tongue, mouth, stomach, small intestine, heart, lungs, bones, muscles and skin. Students stayed about five minutes at each station, where they heard presentations by different volunteers.

“It really went well,” said Rebecca Kessler, PTO president. “The kids were excited. They liked sitting on the teeth. They had teeth that were chair-sized. One little guy was so happy, he wanted to go through again.”

Sabine Molen, another volunteer, staffed the stomach station.

“We talked about different food groups and the nutrients in the stomach,” Molen said. “At first, they were grossed out a little bit.”

But they played a little game where they pretended they were breaking down the food by stretching out their arms.

Kennedy School kindergarten students Jack Welcher, left, and Chris Schultz learn about bones while looking at a skull as part of the Body Walk program. The Kansas State Department of Education sponsors the Body Walk, an educational program that kids walk through to learn about health. The program stopped Monday at Kennedy School, 1605 Davis Road.

“They really liked that. And when they were done, they went to the small intestine,” Molen said.

Mintoy Tolbert, who volunteered to help in the lung section, showed students what would happen if they smoked.

She held up a jar that had a healthy pink lung and a jar that had a dark, unhealthy one.

She also had students breathe through a tiny straw to simulate what it would be like to have emphysema.

Fourth-graders Dominic Madrid, Alyosha Mitchell and Gayge Russell said they enjoyed seeing the lungs.

“They were real live lungs they showed you. And they showed what smoke would do to your body,” Alyosha said. “My other favorite was the brain.”

Gayge said she liked the heart.

“You would get to do a fun activity and see how fast your heart rate went,” she said.