East Lyme ― Fourth grade students at Lillie B. Hayes Elementary School on Thursday were transformed into welders and shipfitters as they used spray cheese to fuse crackers into boats.

The lesson was the second in the six-week “Boat for Kids” series designed by Electric Boat to give the students a taste of the most in-demand manufacturing careers ― though not a literal taste.

David Bradanini, who led the program, reminded the students it was work time, not snack time.

“Do not eat the cheese, do not eat the crackers,” he said. “Same as last time, we don't drink the water. And we’re not eating the soap in the final lesson.”

The first session taught them about buoyancy, while the last will have them whittling a bar of soap to simulate a method of manufacturing.

It’s all part of an initiative to expose students to jobs in the skilled trades amid a hiring boom at Electric Boat locations in Groton and Quonset Point, R.I. The growth has also led to increased hiring at many small- and medium-sized manufacturing businesses in the area that support the shipbuilder.

Approximately 23,000 people work at Electric Boat in Connecticut and Rhode Island. President Kevin M. Graney predicted early this year the company would hire 5,000 employees annually for the next 20 years.

On Thursday, Bradanini handed out bubble-wrapped packages of crackers and cans of pressurized cheese with a heaping pile of napkins.

Harrison Easely, 9, correctly identified the meaning behind the napkins.

“It’s going to get very messy,” he predicted.

Bradanini, a Boat for Kids teacher from the Goodwin University Magnet School in East Hartford, said the manufacturing outreach program has grown to serve about 15 schools from Rhode Island to Westbrook since it began last year.

In the classroom at Lillie B. Haynes, Bradanini explained the role of shipfitter and welder. The shipfitter is the one who reads blueprints, procures metal parts, sets them up where they need to be and makes temporary welds to hold them in place. The welder is the one who melts the metal pieces together for a submarine that doesn't leak or crack.

In the cheese and crackers scenario, the shipfitter breaks the crackers into pieces and holds them in place for the welder. The welder uses gentle pulses on the nozzle to lay a bead of cheese along the cracker’s edge.

In one of the small groups, Maci Gardner, 9, broke a cracker into a triangle to create the base of the boat’s hull. Joseph Aram, 9, volunteered to hold it. Eden Cainot, 9, used the spray cheese to create a welded joint.

At another table, Harrison brainstormed with his team to figure out which way the crackers should lie across the top of the submarine. Then it was time to make the hatch.

Harrison credited his father, a submariner with the Navy, for his knowledge about submersibles. But he said the Navy isn’t on his career path.

“I want to study ants,” he said.

William Barber, youth education programs lead with Electric Boat’s workforce development group, said other lessons in the Boat for Kids program look at trades including pipefitting, sheet metal work and machining.

Barber projected the fast-growing program will serve about 1,500 students this school year.

He said he is targeting school districts where Electric Boat has already forged partnerships at the high school and middle school level.

“In elementary school it’s simple, but by high school they’re actually trying welding,” he said.

East Lyme High School assistant principal David Fasulo said the district’s Pathways program has joined with Electric Boat to offer high school classes at Ella T. Grasso Technical High School and Westerly Community College, and is rolling out the SeaPerch underwater robotics program at East Lyme Middle School.

The Pathways program launched two years ago after Superintendent of Schools Jeffrey Newton and the Board of Education tasked Fasulo with forging partnerships to capitalize on the state’s workforce training focus as well as the pressing need for skilled labor in southeastern Connecticut.

The collaboration with Electric Boat comes at no cost to the district, according to Fasulo.

For 9-year-old Ziana Patel, the exercise fused science and imagination.

“It’s very creative,” she said. “You’ve got to use your brain to figure it out.”

Pointing to her group’s boat, she noted a cracker on one side had fallen over.

“It kept tilting,” she said. “The cheese wouldn’t stick.”

According to Bradanini, that’s the point. He told the class after the activity that things aren’t always going to go according to plan.

“So you’re going to have to work together as a team, keep moving forward and trying to solve those challenges,” he said. “Sometimes it falls down, so you put it back up, change things around, change the design around.”

e.regan@theday.com