HAMPTON — The teachers were almost as excited as children to see the cartoon firetruck come to life on the iPad screen in virtual crayon colors — to them it illustrated principles of STEM.
The truck was leaping off the page of a coloring book thanks to an augmented reality app called Quiver, which teachers at the Downtown Hampton Child Development Center played with Wednesday morning. One tap on the screen would raise and lower the engine's ladder or spray its water.
The app was a teaching technique that members of Newport News Shipbuilding's Career Pathways team demonstrated to share different ways that teachers could incorporate principles of STEM — science, technology, engineering and mathematics — into their lessons.
The Downtown Hampton Child Development Center, which serves about 160 children ranging from 6 weeks to 5 years of age, reached out to the shipyard to collaborate for the children's benefit.
"We do a creative curriculum, which is learn through play, so they're already doing hands-on activities," said Vondella Gregory, program director at the center. "But we're trying to enforce (STEM) even more, enhance it even more, because they're doing it in the elementary schools now. We're the foundation — we're trying to get them up to par so when they go to kindergarten, they're ready."
Down the hall, hex nuts were placed into a boat made with duct tape until it sank underwater in a plastic tub. Cametrice Butcher, who works at the shipyard but volunteers with the Career Pathways team, usually challenges older students to tape together a vessel that can bear a large weight — which are lessons based on the same principles for building nuclear-powered aircraft carriers at the shipyard.
The project could be scaled down for the ages taught at the center, she said, and the children could still practice counting and distinguishing shapes while learning about water displacement and buoyancy.
Pierrette Swan is a Career Pathways representative who was once a welder at the shipyard. She said the STEM concepts taught by these activities could plant the seed of a future career for a young child.
"Right now, it's a problem that a lot of little girls think that STEM is just for the boys," Swan said. "It's really about creating awareness with the younger age group about the potential careers out there and about some of the skills that they may need."
In another classroom, teachers took trips across the world through cardboard "goggles" that implement video-based virtual reality through phone screens. They swiveled their heads around as they peered at their phones, able to see a three-dimensional destination on the other side of the world.
Others "rode" virtual roller coasters thanks to the headsets, moving their arms as they experienced a hill or loop.
"The children will simply love this!" one exclaimed as she explored Tokyo through her phone.
Teachers also learned a recipe for homemade slime, a squishy mixture of Elmer's glue, borax and water.
"I loved everything. I like the scientific stuff. ... I'm a teacher who thinks out of the box," said Vanessa Rice, who teaches 3-year-olds. "I don't like reading books and showing pictures. I like hands-on activities, I like messy art. Plus with all these different activities they do, they get to use scientific words, so I think that will be a good thing for the kids to explore their language."
Hammond can be reached by phone at 757-247-4951.