Students at Morgantown Elementary School got a taste of &uot;edutainment&uot; Friday. William Haynes, an assistant to Don Herbert, also known as &uot;Mr.Wizard&uot; from the TV shows &uot;Watch Mr. Wizard&uot; and &uot;Mr. Wizard’s World,&uot; taught fourth- to sixth-graders how to perform scientific experiments.

The program was titled &uot;Mr. Wizard’s Supermarket Science.&uot;

Interim Morgantown Principal Edward Reed said &uot;edutainment,&uot; or fun learning, may help students learn.

&uot;Anything that we can do to further our children’s base of knowledge, I think is very important,&uot; he said. &uot;We want to give them every incentive that we possibly can to succeed.&uot;

Haynes presented several experiments such as teaching the students how a diaper works.

When a student volunteer poured water into a cup of powder from a diaper, the water seemed to disappear.

&uot;That powder absorbed all that water,&uot; Haynes said.

The students also learned about sound waves, about how clouds are formed and about the strength of an eggshell.

&uot;Usually it’s very difficult for anybody to break an egg by squeezing it,&uot;&160;Haynes said.

Haynes proved the strength of an egg by placing 20 pounds of weight on it.

Fourth-grader Phillip Turner found the trick hard to believe.

&uot;That’s probably a fake egg,&uot; he said.

For the program’s finale, Morgantown teacher Cleveland Moore helped blow the top of a closed canister in a fiery explosion.

&uot;You know explosions occur all around the world every day,&uot; Haynes told the students.

Reed hopes programs like this will help students appreciate science and maybe pursue it as a career.

&uot;Science and technology – that’s the key to the future,&uot; Reed said. &uot;And we need as much exposure as we can to things of this nature.&uot;