Each year, nearly 8,000 school-age kids watch PREM researchers at the University of Texas at Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) deliver awe-inspiring performances: a race between two people to lift a one-ton weight, gummy bears that burst loudly into flames, giant pendulums or wrecking balls swinging dangerously close to the face, and dance—so much dance.
Each demonstration and dance performance centers around a unifying theme: the first law of thermodynamics—energy can neither be created nor destroyed, only transformed.
Consider the pendulum: when pulled just an inch from the face and released with zero initial speed, it won’t come any closer on its return swing. That’s because the total energy in the system remains constant. What begins as gravitational potential energy (pulling it back) becomes kinetic energy (as it swings), then converts back to gravitational potential energy (at its highest point)—with no extra energy created along the way.
This is Energy and U, and at the beginning and end of each show, the young audiences comprised mostly of elementary school kids are asked to complete a survey that asks whether energy can be created and destroyed. “What we find is that the students learn in the process of having fun,” says Arturo Fuentes, PREM Co-PI at UTRGV.