Stonington — Two generations ago, one of the great movie lines uttered in the coming-of-age film "The Graduate" starring Dustin Hoffman was, "Just one word: plastics. ... There's a great future in plastics."

Well, some things haven't changed, as students in Rosamaria Burger's science class at Stonington High School found out earlier ths month.

Burger's morning class was one of four during the day to host Marjorie Weiner of Brooklyn, outreach educator for the Society of Plastics Engineers. The entertaining presentation, sponsored by the plastic extrusion company Davis-Standard just down the road, that was repeated at Westerly High School, was meant to introduce students to the possibility of a career in plastics — and to show how much fun working with the material can be.

"It is the product that every single person is going to be using," Weiner told about two dozen students attending the class. "It's really, really rewarding because you get to see people using the product."

Weiner said the starting salary for a plastics engineer is $75,000 straight out of school. Seven colleges nationwide have an undergraduate plastics degree, and the closest — University of Massachusetts-Lowell — has a 100 percent job-placement rate, she added.

Weiner had previously shown students a series of chemistry experiments in which plastics had morphed before students' eyes. In one case, a squishy material became hard as a rock. In another case, a chemical reaction turned a liquid into a solid in a matter of seconds.

"The cool thing about plastic is you can make it look and feel like whatever you want to make it look and feel like," Weiner said.

Students got a chance to conduct their own experiments, in one case attempting to penetrate an underinflated balloon with a skewer without having it burst. Balloons popped with the rapidity of a particularly rowdy birthday party, and only about a quarter of the class was able to make it work.

Along the way, students heard about how plastic nail polish can be used to detect when their drink has been spiked; learned that NASCAR racing vehicles are 98 percent plastic; and found out that National Football League placekickers have improved the length of their field goals partially because plastic in their equipment has made it easier to improve performance.

The majority of plastics are still made from crude oil, she said, but can also be manufactured from natural gas, sugar cane, corn, algae and coconut. Plastic soda containers can be transformed into sweatshirts, backpacks and T-shirts, among other products, she added.

Plastic helps car bumpers absorb the impact of an accident and improve marathon runners' performance by absorbing shocks to the body.

"This is a global industry," Weiner said. "It's the third largest industry in the world."

And Weiner said it is a clean industry, pointing out that plastics used in medical equipment and manufactured by Davis-Standard must be formed in rooms that are cleaner than an operating room. Davis-Standard, the No. 1 plastic extrusion company in the United States, deals with such industry giants as Boston Scientific for medical equipment and Titleist, the major golf-equipment maker.

"This is the coolest thing we've done all year," said Casey Williams, a Stonington High senior, after the class was over.

"Plastic is so common in our world that we forget how much goes into making them," her teacher, Burger, said. "It's great to see them get excited about science."

l.howard@theday.com

Twitter: @KingstonLeeHow