Again disregarding the news itself in this morning’s newspaper and focusing on the advertisements, this one struck me on page B2:
Signup for a FREE in-school magic show for grades K-4.
“The Magic of Saving Power” is a spellbinding showcase on the benefits of conserving energey. It’s hosted by Joules, the official NSTAR Energy Wizard, NSTAR’s master magician and energy saver extarordinaire. Joules will dazzle your students’ minds with fun facts and teach them magic tricks to use at home to conserve energy. The show lasts 30 minutes for classes of up to 50 students.
First of all, you get bonus points if you, like me, got halfway to the bottom of the next page of the paper before recognizing that “Joules” is not an actual name, but a play on the unit for measuring energy.
Secondly, what magic tricks do you suppose this entails? I can certainly think of a dozen exciting Physics experiments that involve electricity off the top of my head. Cook a hot dog in a couple minutes by applying a voltage across either end. Make a pickle glow by applying a voltage to it. Charge a large capacitor (1 Ferad will do) and then stick a screwdriver with a rubber handle across the contacts — big spark! Et cetera. However, all these things consume electricity, and frankly don’t even put it to particularly good use.
I’m a huge fan of energy conservation, but I admit it’s not very exciting — especially to children. If NSTAR manages to entertain first graders by not using electricity, they deserve major accolades.
(At least two schools, and perhaps many more, have already taken them up on the offer.)
I work as a software developer. In lighthearted moments, I describe my job as “electron wrangler” since the purpose of programming is to get the electrons in the right place to light up a pixel, magnetize a bit of disk surface or travel through the internet. While I work with this stuff all day, it looks like magic to me. Particularly the part where I get paid to do it. Now that … that’s magic.
I have seen this show, and it was for grades 1 & 2 the day I saw. The magician held the attention of them for a full 30 minutes. He did actual “on the market” tricks, that were customized for Nstar. I believe that nstar has magicians on staff to these events, and kudos to them for helping kids save energy.