Photo By Dustin Q. Diaz | Chris Greenhough, a marine engineer with Naval Surface Warfare Center, Carderock...... read more read more
Children of Naval Surface Warfare Center, Carderock Division employees learned about their parents’ roles in the Navy team firsthand on Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day, April 27.
More than 200 children aged 7-18 visited the West Bethesda, Maryland, campus to see where and how their parents use their talents as scientists, engineers, technicians and other roles in support of the Department of the Navy.
“It’s a good day for me today; I get to leave my office and see a whole bunch of the next generation, along with the parents here,” said Carderock Division Technical Director Dr. Tim Arcano, greeting the children following a video about the command’s capabilities at the start of the day. “Welcome to all of you. I want you to know I’m honored to work with your parents, because they’re world class, no matter what they do here. Today, you’re going to get a chance to see what that is.”
Carderock Division Commanding Officer Capt. Mark Vandroff spoke next, emphasizing the importance of each employee’s job for the children. He referred to an employee who works in liquid waste as an example.
“One of the reasons we have ships is so we can send them around the world to defend our interests, and part of that is having our allies ready to accept these ships anywhere in the world. If you’ve got ships that can’t control what comes out of them in terms of liquid waste, we can’t do our mission,” Vandroff said. “The brilliant scientists and engineers who study that and ensure that our ships discharge acceptable waste and will be welcomed around the world, that’s right here at Carderock. If you take that one small piece and think about all the different things like that that Carderock does, you understand why what your parents do here is so important to our national defense.”
The children got to see many of these things during hands-on activities, technology demonstrations and educational tours. Dr. Scott Kasprzak, Signature Materials Physics Branch Head (Code 721), brought his children Natalie, 7, and Henry, 9, for the event, and both said they were impressed with Carderock and the activities during their visit.
“I don’t get a chance to talk a lot about what I do because of the nature of the work, so this is really nice because they get to see the facility, they get to see where I disappear to every day to work, and it gets them excited about science in general,” Kasprzak said.
Kasprzak and his kids watched a ship design presentation and building activity put on by the Center for Innovation in Ship Design. Members of that shop taught the visitors principles of buoyancy, then helped them build basic ship designs with materials like aluminum foil, wood craft sticks and table tennis balls and tested their buoyancy.
“They’ve all heard of forces like gravity and friction, but they may not have learned about buoyancy at school,” said Chris Greenhough, a marine engineer with CISD. “I love teaching children about this, because they come up with some really good ideas. As soon as you give them a hands-on experience, they’re very interested, they love it.”
Other hands-on experiences for the children included standing in the Subsonic Wind Tunnel and visiting the command’s additive-manufacturing facility, the Manufacturing, Knowledge and Education Lab. Henry Kasprzak said that was his favorite part of the tour.
“They showed us how the computer program processes data so you can print things,” said Henry, whose father said he was considering buying him a 3-D printer to use at home. “I just think it’s really cool that you can have a printer that can print practically anything. There are a lot of cool things at Carderock!”
Kids and parents alike were also entertained by the Science Siblings, a trio of employees at Carderock’s sister warfare center division in Panama City who do regular science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) outreach with students via a comedic program with demonstrations from chemistry, physics and electricity. Some of their tricks included the Elephant Toothpaste, a chemical reaction that created a pillar of foam; the lighting of an unplugged fluorescent light tube and the wireless transfer and play of electronic music using a laptop computer and a Tesla coil.
Gavin Science said he enjoyed the enthusiasm of the Carderock kids and that he and his fellow Science Siblings liked having the chance to tie in what they and Carderock’s employees do into the larger Navy mission for the kids, in contrast with their usual trips to local schools within 90 minutes of their home base.
“Today, we tried to bring it back as much as we could to what the parents do; we mentioned a few things about the naval applications of our work, and things of that nature,” Science said. “Sometimes giving them an idea of what their parents do at work every day might add to enthusiasm they’ll have for STEM later in life. It’s like Dr. Arcano and Capt. Vandroff said, this is all part of defending our country. If we can help them make that connection, they’re more likely to proceed into doing something that’s going to be for the betterment of everybody.
| Date Taken: | 04.27.2017 |
| Date Posted: | 05.02.2017 12:37 |
| Story ID: | 232283 |
| Location: | WEST BETHESDA, MD, US |
| Web Views: | 76 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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