South Elementary
Hair-raising experience
By Kate Sullivan Foley/ Correspondent, Stoughton Journal
Feb 18, 2006, 21:35

Museum of Science educator Matt Pacewicz utilizes Tiffany Angelos to demonstrate the flow of negatively charged particles. (Photo By Scott Moskowitz)

Calvin Nguyen didn't have to think hard when asked to describe an assembly he attended last week at the South School.

"It was shocking," said Nguyen, a fourth grader, with a big smile.

Those who watched or participated in the Museum of Science assembly on electromagnetism know why Nguyen chose his words. During the hour long presentation, Van De Graaff generators and other devices were safely used in many static electricity projects. In most of the cases, participating students received shocks during the experiments. Despite the occasional flinch by a shocked student, each time the presenter sought volunteers almost every hand in the crowd went up.

"It was exciting and it was very entertaining," added Nguyen, 9.

The assembly, one of the museum's Traveling Programs, focused on electricity and the relationships among voltage, current and resistance.

Lucas DeAndrade said he was surprised by the things he learned. At first he was skeptical of the capability of the Van DeGraaff generators. The mechanism, a hollow metal ball attached to a vertical pipe, didn't look like it was capable of producing an electric current, he said.

But, similar to his classmate Nguyen, DeAndrade was pleasantly shocked to watch the students' reactions to the often hair-raising static electricity the machine generated.

Read the complete article in the Stoughton Journal.

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