It isn’t common that students from a small town get to meet with workers from Electric Boat. But recently, students at Preston Elementary School got hands-on experience with the company.
Electric Boat met with the fifth grade students at Preston Elementary School on September 26, participating in interactive activities planned and run by EB employees. In these sessions, students learned about the different trades that EB offers.
“There are the main trades of welding, shipfitting, sheet metal, electrical, and machining. There is a whole pipeline from elementary to high school, and (the pipelines) start in elementary (school),” Anja Pennell, Career and Technical Education Director for Goodwin College said. Pennell and Kevin Pellerin, supervisor of the Weld School, led the lesson for students.
The principal of Preston Elementary School, Raymond Bernier, is pleased with EB’s willingness to come teach his students about the trades they offer. “‘Boats for Kids’ is an exciting opportunity for us. It is a program completely run by EB to teach students some of the applicable skills and trades that they do there,” Bernier said.
During the second session out of six, students were taught the basic mechanics of welding. Due to the obvious risk, Jessica Wilson, coordinator of Electric Boat, introduced the lessons by bringing out cheese whiz and crackers for students to use as a replica.
“They will be using the cheese whiz as a torch mechanism to replicate a welding torch and the crackers are actually replicating metal,” Wilson said. The students enjoyed this activity as they were able to get hands-on action with the crackers and cheese, making their own welding projects.
Hadley Mik and Lexi Marsh, 5th grade students of Preston Elementary, shared some of their personal thoughts about this program. “I like doing the activities and learning about submarines,” Mik said. “I like that they are building submarines for the Navy and all the fun activities they are doing with us,” Marsh added.
As careers at Electric Boat interest many people, a special guest from The New York Times made his appearance. William Hennigan, a national security writer for The Times’ opinion section, was especially interested in this program.
“I thought it was very interesting… to find out the need for submarines and how the Navy is thinking about generationally what we need down the line in terms of labor,” Hennigan said.