What does smoking do to a lung? Kids from Tench Tilghman Elementary get an up-close and personal look, courtesy of cancer researcher Malcolm Brock and the pig that donated this lung.

What do the cells in human blood look like? How are medicines made? Why is eating vegetables good for you? Nearly 200 fourth and fifth graders from Thomas G. Hayes and Tench Tilghman elementary schools found out the answers to these questions and more when they made the rounds of selected labs on the medical campus in late April on Community Science Days.

This year, for the first time, scientists in the Cancer Research Building opened their labs, adding a second day to the program. Children spent the morning in the labs, then gathered after lunch in Mountcastle Auditorium for a science show staged by grad students.

Now in its fourth year, the event is the inspiration of cancer researcher Rhoda Alani, who wanted not only to whet kids’ appetites for science but also to show them that Hopkins is way more than the hospital you visit when someone’s ill or the place where you were born (as were about 90 percent of these children).

Hosted by JHHS Community Services and the Department of Basic Sciences, Community Science Days is part of the Community of Caring Campaign, an ongoing effort to link employees and students at the medical institutions with East Baltimore’s neighborhoods.