Kevin Jonas rocks a school field trip to L.A. County’s Natural History Museum

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Of course you’d expect a Jonas brother to be a leader of the pack, but maybe not a line of short people pretending to be fin-whale vertebrae.

And yet, that’s where Kevin Jonas found himself Tuesday when he hooked up with a bunch of Manhattan Place Elementary School second-graders at L.A.’s Museum of Natural History. The event was a ‘Hop, Slither and Stalk’ program tour, kicking off Lunchables’ ‘Field Trips for All’ campaign. The company announced that it would fund 50 worthy outings for schools across the country whose field trips had been eliminated due to cost-cutting. And Tuesday’s expedition was certainly educational.

For Jonas, anyway.

‘This guy right here,’ he said, pointing up at a giant skeleton of ‘the greyhound of the sea’ dangling over his head. ‘The fin whale, I had no idea they could swim as fast as they could and ...

... be as big as they are. It’s amazing.’ Cool stuff to learn about, and Jonas said school cutbacks have been making this type of learning more difficult.

‘I had a great time today being with the kids,’ the 22-year-old continued. ‘And I think the biggest thing I learned today is how many schools are cutting field trips out of their programs this year. That’s an estimated 30,000. And that’s a lot of schools and a lot of kids left without learning outside the classroom, which I think is so important.’

Jonas’ skeletal whale-watching capped off a busy few days. He also recently competed on the new NBC game show ‘Minute to Win it’ to benefit the brothers’ Change for the Children Foundation. The episode airs May 23.

‘I actually played on Sunday,’ he said. ‘I can’t tell you the results.’

Hey, who would we tell?

‘I worked very hard on the game, and it was a very good time. I would love to do it again some time. I practiced day and night, for sure, for practically two weeks.’

Earlier Tuesday, the Jonas Brothers had announced their 2010 tour across three continents with Demi Lovato, the siblings’ fellow traveler in Disneyhood and Joe J.’s squeeze.

‘The tour is amazing,’ Kevin said. ‘It’s going to be a different kind of tour than we’ve ever done. It’s going to be Jonas Brothers for sure, so all your favorite Jonas Brothers songs. And then we’ll sing the songs from ‘Camp Rock’ [‘Camp Rock 2: The Final Jam,’ premiering Sept. 2 on Disney Channel]. And Demi’s going to be our special guest. There’s going to be so much music. We’re working on the set list right now. It’s like 40 songs already in just our set.’

And if you thought arriving onstage by crane in last year’s tour was memorable, Jonas promises thrills even bigger than those offered by construction equipment.

‘The crane was exciting,’ he said. ‘We came through a hole last time, which was pretty intense. I think we’re going to beat it this summer. I won’t tell you the entrance, because that would ruin it, but I think it’s going to be fun.’

Tickets go on sale May 15 at livenation.com and teamjonas.com. To nominate a class for the Lunchables Field Trip contest, visit lunchables.com. On Saturday, Kraft Foods is also funding free first-come, first-served admission for families (up to $15,000) to five museums around the country, including San Diego’s Reuben H. Fleet Science Center.

-- Irene Lacher

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