What makes the first days of school fun? For Grade 4 - 7 students at Fairview Elementary School, it was the chance to try a few of BC Hydro’s new Power Smart for Schools activities.

After a somewhat hectic start to the day, students settled into classrooms where they were met by me or one of my fellow BC Hydro Community Reps. My role was to talk about staying safe around electricity and have the class come up with catchy public service announcements (PSAs) that would help share safety rules with the rest of the school.

To start, the class named some common electrical hazards such as lightning, downed power lines and frayed cords. Then I split the students up into small groups and (with encouragement from the teacher and I) they each came up with a creative PSA based on an important safety rule, such as:

• Don’t fly kites near power lines
• Keep electrical appliances away from water
• Don’t overload electrical outlets

Next up, the kids built an electromagnet using a battery, a nail, and copper wire. There was a lot of excitement and some friendly competition to see who could build the strongest magnet – one group was able to pick up 22 paper clips at one time!

The fun didn’t stop there. To end the morning, we gathered in the gym for a demonstration of the safe distance to stand away from a downed power line (which is 10 metres or the length of a school bus) and how to safely shuffle away from a fallen line. Everyone was a winner for participating and learning how to keep themselves safe around electricity.

If you want to try these activities with your class, check out “Electrical safety announcements”, “Build an electromagnet”, and the “Downed power line demo”.