Energy Adviser: Student tour gives electrical safety lesson

As a group of students stand by, watching, one fifth-grader places her hands on a silver globe as static electricity makes her hair stand on end. At another station, a student is peddling a stationary bike, trying to generate enough electricity to power a transistor radio, a hand mixer, a fan and, finally, a hair dryer. His fellow students cheer when he finally gets the last appliance to turn on.

During the school year, at least three days each week, Clark County teachers bring their fourth- and fifth-graders to Clark Public Utilities on 117th Ave. for field trips. The students, teachers and parent volunteers spend about two hours learning about electricity, electrical safety, and water quality and conservation. But what the kids really enjoy the most are the hands-on activities that wrap up each tour and bring all the learning to life in real-world ways.

Last year, Clark Public Utilities hosted about 4,500 students from elementary schools throughout the county. The tours are so popular they fill up before school even starts and there’s a waiting list. Shaun Spadolini, a fourth-grade teacher at Image Elementary School and a longtime field trip participant, said his students enjoy seeing how their science lessons relate to work in our community, and become quite engaged with the tour and its leaders.

For the utility, the safety message is critical. On this day, Mark Rudberg, a customer service representative, conducts a tour of the warehouse. After instructions to stay between the yellow lines, he leads a group of Prune Hill Elementary School students to a display inside the warehouse. He raises a piece of muddy-looking glass and explains that what they’re seeing is blacktop from a road, melted by a fallen power line.

He shows a hunk of transmission line as thick as a child’s wrist. He points to its large, crispy section and explains, “Something pierced this line and electricity burned through it,” quickly adding, “What do you think would happen if you touched it?” The 20 students surrounding him seem impressed, yet stay silent. It’s clear they know the answer.

He talks more about transformers and electrical danger and answers questions about the power of electricity. Electrocuted squirrels worry the fifth-grade crowd, so Rudberg shows an insulator cap the utility linemen put on transformers to protect critters seeking warmth or protection from predators on this dangerous platform. He explains that the utility does its best to keep wildlife safe from electricity.

Then he leads them through the warehouse, stopping near huge metal recycling bins. Rudberg tosses out another question, “How much money do you think we make back by recycling each year?” Students shout answers back. One girl guesses, “$300,000?” “Good guess, no one’s guessed right for a long time,” he jokes.

Back in the classroom, the kids gather around StreamTeam volunteer Hannah Hodgson, who asks them to keep some questions in mind as they watch her demonstrate a water table: What’s happening to the water? Where’s it going?

The contour of the water table display that Hodgson demonstrates, with hills sloping down to roads and into streams, shows students how oil and wastes pile up on land, only to wash down into streams. The example fits with the students’ study of landforms back in the classroom, as they see how pollution on a hillside road runs down into the watershed after Hodgson pours “rain” from a pitcher above the table. The school these students attend has a bioswale and the fifth graders can test for seven substances including oxygenation and phosphate. When they test nearby Deer Creek, they can contrast the results from both. On the tour, they learn more about how those things all affect habitat for fish and wildlife.

After the water demonstration, utility communications coordinator and tour host Maxie Lofton provides a full presentation of the basics of electricity that matches up with the students’ classroom learning. Then she covers some important safety concepts one more time before turning all 60 kids loose on those hands-on, interactive stations. At the solar panel display, a boy uses his hands to block light and sees the panel’s energy output drop. He makes the connection that this is what happens when clouds cross over a rooftop solar array. Other students build a model-size stream habitat for salmon. When one of the teachers makes the hair dryer turn on with the bike generator across the room, her students turn and cheer.

Energy Adviser is written by Clark Public Utilities. Send questions to ecod@clarkpud.com or to Energy Adviser, c/o Clark Public Utilities, P.O. Box 8900, Vancouver, WA 98668.