Early Start to Good Energy Habits

Originally published by EnergyBiz Magazine:

By Lisa Cohn

In 1977, Ward Eames was a 19-yearold theater student at the University of Minnesota who sported shoulder-length hair, bell-bottoms and clogs. Only a few years had passed since the oil crisis of the early 1970s.

Eames, who specialized in children’s theater, realized one day while performing in front of 600 children that he could capture kids’ attention through theater and educate them about important issues such as energy conservation.

“I saw the power of theater and realized you could educate with this power — and entertain,” he says. “There was something special about the relationship between a live stage actor and the kids in the audience.”

Eames began paying visits to businesses in Minneapolis, and soon had a taker for his idea. Northern States Power, now Xcel Energy, asked Eames to bring into 360 schools a show about electrical safety and energy conservation.

In no time, the college student had added Edison Electric, Seattle City Light, and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power to his list of clients.

Eames’ company, now called the National Theatre for Children, based in Minneapolis, has grown 20 percent per year for the past five years — due in large part to interest in energy-related issues. Energy shows now make up 30 percent of NTC’s business, attracting utility companies eager to get their conservation, safety and renewable-energy messages into the schools and in front of parents.

NTC’s performances, which cost about $3 per child, feature “silly, funny, adventure-comedy in live interactive theater,” Eames says. For example,

“Boomerang Jack and The Unseen Green Machine” pits Boomerang Jack, an adventure nut who knows a lot about green energy, against The Great Waster, a super villain determined to waste energy.

Such programs, funded by utilities, have proven popular with schools. St. Louis-based Ameren this year offered NTC’s Boomerang Jack program to 200 schools, and the program was oversubscribed within 10 days, says Bill Barbieri, manager of renewable energy for the company.

“One of the main things we wanted to emphasize was education,” Barbieri says. “We thought it was so critical to our customer base. Our customers here in the Midwest probably aren’t as well versed in renewable energy as other customers across the country.”

One of the keys to the NTC programs: They reach parents by including homework that’s supposed to be completed by the child and one or more parents.

“This is geared toward grades kindergarten through 6th grade. Much of the information in that age group still goes home to mom and dad,” says Barbieri. “Parents review the homework. In this age group, this was a means to get the information back home to the parents.”

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