The children seemed scarcely interested in the classroom discussion on asthma until Eric Kriner brought out the pig lungs.
"Ewwwwww," they exclaimed while huddling with wide eyes around the red, wrinkled blob that had been preserved for demonstrations. Then Kriner, a clinical education director at Prince George's Community College, attached a squeeze pump to the lungs and blew them up like balloons.
"Look at it!"
"Awesome!"
"Can I touch them? I eat pork!"
It was Monday morning, and Camp Superkids, an annual, weeklong residential camp for Maryland youngsters with asthma, had gotten off to a gross start - just the way kids like it.
The group of mostly 7- to 10-year-olds were so delighted by the lung demonstration that their moods had clearly shifted from that of moments earlier, when Kriner asked what it felt like to have asthma and some solemnly spoke of breathing difficulties, burning throats and being rushed to the hospital.
That is the aim of this week's camp, which is sponsored by the American Lung Association of Maryland. It brings together children ages 7 to 12, to teach them about their disease and how they can control it.
What better way to do that than at a 54-acre campground in Laytonsville in Montgomery County, complete with miniature golf, swimming pool, and an arts and crafts room, decorated in pirates motif to coincide with this year's camp theme, "Asthma Overboard."
For most of the youngsters, asthma is an albatross - a painful, sometimes frightening ailment that undermines some of the joys of being a kid. The ALA of Maryland has sought to make learning about the disease a better experience.
For more than 20 years, it has hosted the camp with the hopes of empowering youngsters through education, which they believe will ultimately help to manage their disease and avoid potentially fatal attacks.
The youngsters receive two asthma education classes each day. Kriner, who also teaches at PGCC, makes the instructions as visually oriented as possible, hence the inflated lungs, to demonstrate to the youngsters what happens to the air they breathe. Most appeared to know little about the respiratory system when the instruction began. When it was done, they were familiar with terms like "windpipe" and "bronchial tubes."
"Those lungs were freaky," Montreze Marseille, 8, of Baltimore said after the instruction.
