Valley Kids Visit Body Worlds Exhibit | ABC30 Fresno

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By ABC30

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Fresno, CA The California Science Center near the UCLA Campus is hosting the exhibit which features actual human bodies that are preserved by a process that replaces the fluids in the cells with types of plastic. It was here that the 7th grade class of KIPP Academy Fresno got a truly unique science lesson according to student Paula Gutierrez: "When you're reading you don't really know how things really work together then when you see it."

Educating the public about what lies under our skin is the point of the 'Body Worlds' exhibit say organizers. And for the four young middle school students we spoke with it was a real learning experience:

Paula Gutierrez, It made me kind of uncomfortable, seeing the lungs after a person smokes, how it changes, a lot."

Brenda Gutierrez, I think when you go there it really changes your mind about everything and about how to live better."

Lydia Ramirez wants to be a pediatrician and says seeing the real thing help her understand more about the body. Lydia Ramirez: 'Maybe they had a girl throwing a ball or they had 'em doing different exercises so you could see how the muscles work." Her mother tells us Lydia is already counseling her family on the dangers of smoking and drinking she learned about on the field trip.

Olga Ramirez: (She) told my husband and told my brothers and everybody in the family. So, one of her statements was: 'Mom, I'm not going to be drinking, I'm not going to be smoking. The field trips that they take are not ordinary, they are extra-ordinary!!'

In fact, the Body Worlds exhibit was just one stop in a four day trip to other museums and to the UCLA campus. Olga Ramirez: "Her mentality now is: what college am I going to, not will I go to college."

KIPP Academy Fresno is a charter middle school working to get its 3-hundred students on the track to a college degree. Their principal says 'Body Worlds' offers the kind of science lesson they can't get in classroom.

KIPP: Academy Fresno
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