The Herald-Palladium, 2/18/2010

Ewwww!

Exhibit at new Discovery Zone explains why the human body produces all that nasty stuff

By JEREMY D. BONFIGLIO
H-P Features Writer

ST. JOSEPH — Sylvia Branzei-Velasquez was cutting her toenails when she came up with the idea for her best-selling book.

“I said, ‘Wow, what’s this stuff? It’s really icky and gross,’” Branzei-Velasquez says by telephone from her home in southern Oregon. “Since I had majored in microbiology, I realized that if I really wanted to, I could actually figure out what it was.”

A few days later, after discussing it over spaghetti dinner with her family, Branzei-Velasquez decided to write “Grossology,” a children’s science book that would help explain how and why the human body produces mushy, oozy, crusty, scaly, stinky gunk.

“The whole point of Grossology was to capture kids’ attention so that I could teach them science,” says Branzei-Velasquez, a former junior high school science teacher. “Grossology is the hook to learning. Once you have their attention, the overall lesson is that science is fun and immediate to each person’s life.”

Since its first printing in 1995, the book has spawned a popular Penguin Putnam series, and the North American touring exhibition “Grossology: The (Impolite) Science of the Human Body,” which opens Saturday at the new Curious Kids’ Discovery Zone in St. Joseph.

The popular traveling exhibit, which will remain at the Discovery Zone through Sept. 6, is a physical extension of Branzei-Velasquez’s book.

“Having Grossology as our first traveling exhibit sets the bar pretty high for us,” says Josh Mason, exhibit manager for the Discovery Zone. “It’s been all around the country and from all reports it’s always been received really well. I think having something like this for this community, it’s just going to be huge.”

The exhibit is laid out in 12 stations that uses animatronics, science tools such as microscopes, and large-scale body parts turned play equipment, which allows children to delve into the good, the bad and the all-too-ugly.

At the Burp-Man station, little hands can pump a lever to send enough soda into an animatronic stomach to produce a burp. At the Vomit Center, a little audience participation can make a cartoon character barf, though, thankfully, nothing resembling the real material is produced. They can match the odors with the area of the body they come from in Y U Stink, create sounds that replicate the physics of gas at the Toot Toot display, or climb a large replica of human skin by scaling blemishes such as pimples, moles and warts. It’s all very, well, gross.

“My favorite thing to do is to watch other people interact with the exhibits, especially Y U Stink,” Branzei-Velasquez says.

“We warn you that there are disgusting smells. Yet people proceed to smell each one, and then they make faces. Often I hear kids say, ‘Hey Mom, come over and smell this.’”

Branzei-Velasquez, a Michigan native who earned her bachelor’s degree in microbiology from the University of Michigan in 1980, says she never imagined that her book could be turned into such a popular exhibit until she was approached by Canada’s Science World, BC, and Advanced Exhibits, out of Birmingham, Mich.

In 1999, Branzei-Velasquez and the two companies collaborated to create the original 5,000-square-foot display that opened in 2000 at the Vancouver Science Centre.

A second 5,000-square-foot traveling exhibit debuted that same year, and since then, a smaller 2,500-square-foot exhibit – the one opening at the Discovery Zone – has been added. A new Animal Grossology exhibition opened in the fall of 2004 and is also touring across the country.

“Kids are very curious creatures, and they just love learning about themselves and the world around them,” Branzei-Velasquez says. “When they come across disgusting things, some of those will naturally elicit a response. Kids enjoy playing with emotions. They like to get a rise out of adults. So, gross stuff works.”

Although on the surface the exhibit may appear little more than locker room humor, the reality is that it has helped children appreciate the complexity of the natural world while learning about health issues that may affect their lives, such as germs that cause disease and how cavities are formed.

“Once we understand our bodies, we also understand that we need to pay attention to them,” Branzei-Velasquez says. “Our hope is that the children (who see this) will take better care of their bodies. Also, if we know what our body does when it is ‘normal,’ we will be alert to when things are not correct.”

Although the exhibit celebrates all things gross, Branzei-Velasquez says parents shouldn’t worry about the subject triggering their own gag reflex.

“I did have a kid tell me once that he threw up after visiting the exhibit,” Branzei-Velasquez says. “However, his mother told me that when they took him home it turned out that he had the flu. Mostly, the stuff I do is funny and the experiments really aren’t that gross. Adults may start out a bit cautious, but they are easily won over when they see the reaction of the kids.”

jbonfiglio@TheH-P.com