By Laura Mazur
Community Post
You could start a fire. Someone could get hurt. Someone could die.

Third graders at Minster Elementary gave these sentiments as reasons why to be careful around electricity. They learned even more during an electrical safety demonstration presented by Matt Berry,
manager of Customer and Community Relations at Midwest Electric, a cooperative in St. Marys.
“Electricity does a lot of good stuff, but it can hurt people, cause fires and even kill people if you're not careful,” explained Berry. “Don't be afraid of it, but respect it.”
Students also named positive attributes of electricity, such as light, heat, watching TV, plumbing, speakers, cooking, radios, computers and refrigerators, to name a few. They also learned the one main rule to remember electricity is always seeking a path to the ground, including through people.
Electricity travels at a speed of 186,000 miles per second, which is about 7.5 times around the Earth in one second.
“One main thing is for them to not be afraid of electricity and treat it with respect. Another is for them to identify potentially dangerous things and be aware of things around them,” said Berry.
By plugging in a table-top model of a neighborhood to a classroom power outlet and connecting it to a set of transformers, students learn about a neighborhood that is energized to 12,000 volts. With the additional use of copper plates, wiring and residents of the make-believe Minster, students learned about “Bob,” “Charlie” and the dangers of electricity. They learned about a home with an antenna, kite flying, climbing a tree, helping others and fallen power lines on automobiles.
If an electrical wire falls down on a disabled car, such as in a storm, the safest thing to do is to stay in the vehicle and wait until help arrives. But in the situation where someone would need to get out of the vehicle, such as if the car was on fire, the safest way is by opening the door wide, crouching on the ledge and jumping to safety. To prevent electrocution, a person exiting the car in this situation should not touch the car and the ground at the same time because this steers an electrical pathway from the power lines to the ground through the person.
On the other hand, students also learned that birds stay sitting on electrical wires without getting injured because there is no path to the ground from the bird.
Berry additionally told students that although there are cases where overhead power lines are dangerous, walking under the lines in the rain will not harm anyone, nor will simply touching the wooden pole.
The talk confirmed, as well as taught, some students lessons about electricity.
Carly Barhorst said she recently did a book report about electricity, but the talk taught her a bit more. Dezerae Miller learned about the dangers of touching wires together.
Sara Ripploh learned, “You shouldn’t touch wires. Someone could get electrocuted.”
Lacey Dirksen learned lessons about looking for overhead wires before climbing trees and kite flying.
And Sable Hudson will remember the tried and true safety lesson, “Call 911.”
Berry additionally gave his demonstration to first and second graders in the school on Friday morning.