PSEG-LI brought lessons on avoiding electrical hazards Thursday to Birchwood Intermediate School, wowing the students with the zaps of electricity and displays of small flames.
Kids watched as PSEG workers demonstrated the hazards of electrical wires if ladders touched them, fell on cars or were accidentally struck by people digging up their yards. Theysquealed at the sight of flame and sparks flying from a car, and saw a hotdog extended as a stand-in for a human finger getting toasted by electricity, laughed as a worker, demonstrating the many home tools that use electricity, held up a hair blower and removed his hardhat to reveal his lack of hair.
Another, showing the dangers of digging without knowing where the power lines are, pretended to be zapped by power and fell to the ground in a move reminisicent of Star Trek’s William Shatner, and others demonstrated the demise of a stuffed toy squirrel that ventured one too many times onto power lines.
The utility’s Live Lines educational tool is a 40’ long three-quarter-scale model of the electric distribution system on a trailer that shows common electrical hazards and teaches how to stay safe around electricity. Birchwood was its first stop.
The school district said that the lesson fit perfectly into the school’s fourth-grade science curriculum that includes learning about electrical circuits.
