Recycling magic wows students Elementary school children...

Recycling magic wows students

Elementary school children in the Ocean View School District

learned about the magic of recycling during a series of assemblies

that ended March 26.

Magician Timothy Wenk visited six Ocean View schools to perform

his show, which mixes illusions with lessons on reusing paper and

glass instead of throwing old items away.

“He really explained all the ethics of recycling to the kids,”

said Karen Catabijan, principal of Oak View Elementary School.

Wenk’s magic tricks showed children how recycling can transform

materials into new objects. In one trick, he showed the students that

when a phonebook is recycled, the paper can be used again.

By waving his hands over a phonebook, he erased the printing from

a page, said Linda Lake, a teacher at Westmont Elementary School.

“Right before our eyes, it went blank,” she said.

He followed the illusion by turning a 2003 phonebook into a 2004

edition, and also made old bottles disappear and reappear as new

bottles, she said.