Photo by Deb Gau Area middle school students try out the virtual cadaver table at Southwest Minnesota State University during the annual Science and Nature Conference held by Southwest West Central Service Cooperative.

MARSHALL — Learning about human muscles and organs is seldom a hands-on experience, for obvious reasons. But the group of area middle school students gathered in a darkened classroom at Southwest Minnesota State University got a chance to take a closer look at anatomy, with the help of a virtual cadaver table.

The kids took turns using a stylus to tap different muscles on a full-size scan of a human body.

“Would this be a muscle?” one student asked, pointing to an area on the skull.

“Let’s see,” said Kris Cleveland, associate professor of exercise science at SMSU.

When the student touched the screen, the muscle was highlighted with a name: occipitofrontalis. That’s the muscle that raises your eyebrows, Cleveland explained.

The anatomy demonstration was just one of the hands-on learning activities at the 29th annual Science and Nature Conference held Tuesday at the SMSU campus. Students in kindergarten through eighth grade took part in activities ranging from learning about plants and animals, to building their own rockets and rubber-band helicopters.

About 635 students from around southwest Minnesota attended this year’s conference, said Andrea Anderson, student enrichment coordinator at the Southwest West Central Service Cooperative. Anderson said it was good to be able to offer opportunities for young people to get excited about science.

“It’s fun to see the kids,” Anderson said.

All the classes available at the conference had an element of hands-on learning or audience participation.

“It was cool,” Erica Jaenisch said of getting to use the virtual cadaver table. She was one of a group of area students who had each tried something different for their first conference sessions.

“We learned about circuits, and then we did like, mini lights,” said Riley Jaenisch.

Other students attended a planetarium show, or built helicopters.

In one of the sessions, students got to tour the university greenhouse, and then potted their own houseplants to take home. Instructor Jacky Aslesen taught the kids how to water and care for their new succulents and spider plants.

McKinley Plante, a student from the Murray County Central District, said getting to pot the plants was fun.

“Me and my mom both love planting plants,” she said. They even had spider plants at home, she said.

In another session Tuesday morning, students learned about the forces that make rockets fly, and built their own rockets to try out.

Canby student Easton Gagnon said it was “pretty exciting” to get to spend the day at the conference.