Pinon Hills students see fun side of physics

Hundreds of Pinon Hills Elementary School students laughed up a storm Monday afternoon when fellow classmate Jonathan Jilk volunteered for a science experiment.

The curious sixth-grader sat calmly with both hands on a gleaming lightning ball unaware that the hair on the back of his head was beginning to stand up.

"Static electricity is a lot like a hyper kid with too much sugar," said Denise Navetta with Mobile Ed Productions. "It just wants to get out into the world."

Navetta put on the Physics is Fun assembly. A former teacher, Navetta travels around the western U.S. performing educational shows.

"It's a different school every day," she said. "Our motto is education through entertainment."

If applause and laughter were any indication, the students were entertained.

Navetta pounded on a drum to demonstrate sound waves and concussive energy. She sent a student spinning on a Lazy Susan to demonstrate principles of friction and inertia.

To illustrate the nature of electricity and alternating current, Navetta placed a metal plate on top of a stool and hooked the plate to a Tesla coil, named after inventor Nikola Tesla.

She used a foot pedal to electrify the plate. A stick burst into flames when touched against the metal, yet students still raised their hands to volunteer for the experiment.

One brave student took a seat on the plate, but looked surprised when Navetta pedaled the voltage through his body.

"Let me explain why your butt didn't get zapped," she said. "Volts are like water in a hose. Amps are like putting your thumb over the hose. So volts are a lot safer."

When the audience doubted that electricity was actually running through the young man, Navetta gave the student a fluorescent light bulb to hold, which began to glow.

"It's not going all the way because it's an incomplete circuit," she said.

So she called another student to the front and gave her a similar light bulb. When the two students, joining hands with Navetta, touched the tips of the bulbs, the tubes filled with light and buzzed like light sabers from "Star Wars."

"Physics is a fascinating thing," said 12-year-old Brandon Sweetland. "It could be dangerous, but it could be really fun."

Navetta saved the best for last: the ignition of a miniature jet engine.

"In a jet, air rushes through the intakes, mixes with the jet fuel and is ignited," she said. "Energy from the explosion comes out the back and is called thrust."

Navetta had students cover their ears while she ignited the engine, feeding air into it with a compressor. Strapped to the table, the engine boomed like a canon and shot ragged flame from its end.

"Physics is really cool," sixth-grader Connor Lyons said after the show. "You can do a lot of things with it."