This all might sound weird or flat-out gross. But the makers of "Corpus," a new attraction in the Netherlands, are hoping that a combination amusement park and health education museum will encourage kids to take better care of their own bodies.

Even before Corpus officially opened March 20 in Oegstgeest, 21 miles southeast of Amsterdam, it was already a local landmark. The building incorporates a 115-foot high seated human figure into its structure. But the rough-hewn Corpus exterior isn't much to look at: All the detail is on the inside.

All the walls and halls are modeled with fiberglass to resemble the inside of a giant human body, giving visitors the sensation of being shrunk down to a tiny scale.

Visitors begin their tour via an escalator that carries them through a wound in the giant figure's calf. Once inside, they see an exhibition on what happens when a wood splinter pierces the skin.

Then it's on to the sit-down "Uterus Theater." That's the one with the cartoon sperm race.

"We chose not to show sexual activity, but actually just the fertilization of the egg cell by the seed cell and how that develops" into a fetus, said Dr. Tom Voute, one of a raft of physicians hired as advisers on the project. He said the information in Corpus is medically accurate.

When the show is over, the entire theater platform is lifted with hydraulic pumps to the next floor, where it's on to digestion. After visitors watch a video showing stomach acid dissolving blocks of cheese, the Dutch national treat, the curds' progress through a hallway-size intestinal system charted with lights and narration.

While the cheese heads downward, visitors progress up to exhibits on the heart, lungs, mouth, nose and ear. The summit is - where else? - in the brain.

Visitors take seats around a cluster of display panels built atop model neurons, which then project images onto a larger screen at the top of the domed space to give an impression of how consciousness might work.

The project is the dream of businessman Henri Remmers, who arranged $31 million in private funding and won the endorsement of the Dutch Health Ministry. Admission is $25.50 for adults, $21 for children under 14. Children younger than 8 are not permitted.

On the way back down, there are more displays on health and diet, plus games - for instance one where players attempt to knock out bacteria on a big screen display by tossing bean bags at them. Other machines let visitors monitor their hearts while they exercise, or measure blood pressure, heart rate and body mass index.

Remmers said he hoped when people learn more about the "unique mechanism" that the human body is, "then you'll have more respect for your own body, and possibly treat it a little more carefully." *

For more on Corpus, a museum of the human body in Oegstgeest, Netherlands, go to www.corpus-experience.nl.