Employees at the Naval Surface Warfare Center Panama City Division (NSWC PCD) joined parents across the nation by participating in this year's annual Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day, May 6.

NSWC PCD Commanding Officer Capt. Phillip Dawson III said the country's annual observance of Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work gives parents the chance to show their children the value of education by showing how science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) studies can lead to interesting and rewarding future careers.

"Since the Department of Defense has designated 2015 as the Year of the Military Diver, we decided to take advantage of this by combining this celebration in conjunction with this year's observance of Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work," said Dawson. "By combining these events, we were able to offer our workforce's families and local students a broader spectrum of STEM-related exhibits and interactive displays.

NSWC PCD has partnered with the Naval Support Activity Panama City (NSA PC), the Naval Diving and Salvage Training Center, and the Navy Experimental Diving Unit to show students that Panama City's naval community is the hub of all military diving.

Students and family members were able to see facilities, speak with experts, and experience hands-on interaction with state-of-the-art technologies that shape the practices of diving and life support all over the world."

As the day begun, NSWC PCD Executive Officer Cmdr. Paul Werring explained various missions relative to coastal defense and diving and life support to children escorted by parents and teachers.

"We started the day by showing different types of inert mines and explaining how our work requires an understanding of STEM studies. Students learned that their parents are the world's expert scientists, engineers and technicians in mine warfare and coastal defense," said Werring.

From touring Navy hovercraft to sitting inside the cockpit of an MH-60S Mine Countermeasures helicopter to being shown how electricity and physics are involved in their parents' jobs, children were continually being reminded how STEM skills were inherently part of every work site they visited.

Science Brothers, Electrical Engineer Bill Porter and Physicist Dan Flisek, and newest partner Science Sister Mechanical Engineer Rachel Ivy, put on two shows for kids to see how working with STEM skills could be fun.

"For a few years now, Bill and Dan have been showing Bay County Schools and surrounding county school children experiments that demonstrate the different types of STEM skills their parents use in their daily jobs and how learning to practice and use STEM skills can be fun," Ivy said. "Being a mechanical engineer, they brought me on to incorporate a side of STEM that chemistry and electricity might not cover in the show. I came onto this project to show these kids that becoming scientists like the Science Brothers isn't just something for boys, but that it's fun and cool for girls, too."

Porter said that light, sound and energy are used in their demonstrations as well as chemistry, physics, and electricity.

"We use a wide spectrum of experiments to show kids that they can use STEM skills to be creative and have fun while they work, whether in school or at a job," said Porter.

Flisek said that the Navy's celebration of 2015 as the Year of the Military Diver actually helped the Science Brothers and Sister to include demonstrations that showed how the Navy uses STEM skills to help its divers.

"This allowed us to demonstrate how divers can use chemistry in the form of glow sticks for light underwater. By showing students how chemicals can be used to make things like glow sticks light up, we were able to demonstrate how they can help divers have a light source that doesn't require batteries," said Flisek. "Also, by including our sulfur hexafluoride balloon demonstration, we were able to explain to the children that divers need to have alternate gases to help them breathe at different depths in the ocean. Using visual experiments like these helps students better understand how their parents use STEM skills at work. But this year especially, it also helped to show them how their hometown of Panama City really is the home of military diving and life support."

For more news from Naval Surface Warfare Center Panama City Division, visit www.navy.mil/local/NSWC/.