Cara Spilsbury
May 02, 2007 11:32 am
—
MIDDLETON | Doing the twist, shouting at the top of your lungs and pelting adults with pillows are hardly activities you'd associate with the teaching of science.
But that's exactly what students at the Howe-Manning School got to do in their gymnasium one recent afternoon.
With Michigan's "Dr. B.A. Bodybuddy," the students got a unique lesson on the heart, the liver, the circulatory system, the kidneys and the immune system.
Dr. Bodybuddy, whose real name is William Peters, started the program by attempting a tongue twister that cracked up the children while hitting home the theme of the day.
"If you're a buddy to your body, your body will be a buddy to you," he said with a sing-song inflection.
Dr. Bodybuddy's presentation was aided by two automated, chatty friends | a giant liver named Larry and an enormous heart named Hillary. The three performers, with a little prerecorded audio magic, made the insides of the human body quite literally come alive.
Student volunteers, much to their visible dismay and to the delight of the audience, were told to hold hands to represent skin and mucus | two important players in keeping our bodies free from infection. Then they were armed with white cushions, representing white blood cells. They got to attack Dr. Bodybuddy, who was posing as a germ.
Larry the Liver and Dr. Bodybuddy then introduced the kidney twins, played by two other volunteers. The students used their mouths like a ventriloquist's dummy, opening and closing while Dr. Bodybuddy filled in facts about kidneys in goofy cartoon-like voices that had the other students laughing.
Then, with the help of Hillary the Heart, 16 volunteers got to do the happy dance and the twist with Dr. Bodybuddy, as tunes by Bobby McFerrin and The Beatles pulsed from the speakers. This experiment proved to the students that daily exercise could be fun, and was imperative for a healthy heart.
"I had a lot of fun dancing," said David Viviano, 10, one of the chosen volunteers. "And I did feel happier."
David and classmate Amy Fogarty, 9, agreed that they learned a lot about their bodies.
"I didn't know blood worked that way," Amy said, referring to Dr. Bodybuddy's portrayal of blood by trailing a scarf through the chambers of Hillary the Heart.
Amy, one of the white blood cells, had a lot of fun, and particularly liked the kidney twins.
"When they were the kidneys was my favorite part," she said. "I was like, 'Those are so cool.'"
Both students also thought that all of their peers had a great time with Dr. Bodybuddy.
"It looked like everyone had fun," David said.
After the show, Peters noted that the children had fun but were well-behaved, too.
"This was a very good school," he said.
The age-levels at the Howe-Manning School are some of his favorite to perform for, he said, because they're learning about science while also learning how to be an appropriate audience.
"I'll tell you, I've done all kinds of acting gigs," Peters said, "and elementary school kids are an honest audience. If they think something's funny, they'll laugh. If they don't, they won't."
He also visited Fuller Meadow School on Thursday.
As the 45-minute presentation came to a close, the fourth-graders were calmed down by a group-wide deep breath. Then Dr. Bodybuddy left them with one final, and catchy, thought.
"Take care of your bodies everybody!" he said.
Copyright © 1999-2008 cnhi, inc.