FORT BELVOIR, Va. - First graders at Fort Belvoir Elementary School learned Thursday how science and technology help the U.S. military in completing its daily missions.

Members of the Program Executive Office Soldier's Project Manager Soldiers Sensors and Lasers team visited the school to conduct a night-vision goggle demonstration for the children.

PEO Soldier was created by the Army to develop the best equipment and field it as quickly as possible. PM SSL is dedicated to making Soldiers more effective.

"Our particular mission, within PM SSL, is all about sensors, targeting devices and those kinds of tools that allow Soldiers to have better situational awareness on the battlefield," Col. Stephanie Foster, project manager, Soldier Sensors and Lasers, said. "Our work will make Soldiers more lethal and more survivorable in any kind of environment."

For the demonstration, the students were given a monocular night-vision device to search through an obstacle course set up in a blacked-out room. Each student maneuvered through obstacles and was tasked with finding three small toy Soldiers in the dark using the devices.

Before entering the NVG demonstration, Lance Fujita, a mechanical engineer and product manager for Soldier Maneuver Sensors, taught the children how the devices work and the importance science and technology has in their lives.

"Science and math are very important and we really want the children to think about that as a career," Fujita said. "We asked the children what they wanted to be when they grow up and we got a lot of the expected answers, like a football player.

"But, we want to show the kids that a career in math or science can be just as cool as those generic jobs that all children want to be when they grow up," Fujita said.

While small groups of children went through the actual demonstration, Fujita and his team showed the children other alternative vision devices, including a thermal weapon sight and an integrated laser and white light pointer.

After the demonstration, the team handed out science crossword puzzles for each student to complete.

Foster felt an event like this would allow her team to get out into the community and teach the children about their mission.

"It is important to do what we can to enhance the inclusion of science and math when looking at our school children in primary and secondary education," Foster said. "My team, within PEO Soldier PM SSL, is a living application of all these different people with different skills coming together on a single mission of being able to equip our Soldiers.

"We are assigned here at Fort Belvoir and we wanted to start early. That is why we have the first-graders," Foster said. "What we wanted to do was share some of our people, their backgrounds and their experiences with science and math to let kids know that anyone can be a part of science and math and there are a lot of opportunities with those subjects."