My younger son has monthly assigned science demos which he has to do in front of his class. And right on schedule, this morning he was asking for supplies for this month’s demonstration. While choosing a good heat source for his convection demonstration, it occurred to me that he had never brought home the stuff from last month’s electromagnetism demo. So I ask him what happened to the stuff. My expectation being that it was stuffed in his locker or something.

To my surprise, he goes to his backpack and starts digging. As he’s pawing for the bottom of the sack, out comes a few pink and red paper hearts. Presumably shards from a Valentine’s Day project. He next produces two 16oz cans connected by a string. I guess this makes sense. He’s too young for a cell phone. There were a couple of other objects I didn’t quite see clearly. And then he produces the wire coil, iron core, and a big 6v lantern battery.

Now those things are relatively heavy. And he’s been lugging them around for a month? I don’t know why the feds are digging for Jimmy Hoffa in Michigan. It seems likely he’s probably in the bottom of my son’s backpack somewhere. It’s not like the boy would ever notice.