And experts see the partnership as something districts around the country may follow as they too seek better ways to improve STEM education.

“If students are to be ready to compete in the global economy, this kind of program is exactly the kind of experience they need,” said Lydia M. Logan, the executive director of the Institute for a Competitive Workforce, an arm of the U.S Chamber of Commerce in Washington. She said other high-tech companies in the defense industry, such as Boeing, Siemens, Intel, and IBM, are also supporting STEM education in schools.

Competitors Collaborating

The Baltimore County partnership includes the local operations of two major military contractors—Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin—as well as researchers at Johns Hopkins University, an institution that also does work for the military.

Baltimore County Superintendent Joe A. Hairston brought together the partners, which had independent initiatives in the 105,000-student district’s schools, to get a jump on technology that his students and teachers otherwise might not see for decades.

“Technology goes to the military first,” Mr. Hairston told education publishers at a meeting in Arlington, Va., last month that was addressing the need for better digital curricula. “They hang on to it for 20 years, then give it to the commercial sector when they are done with it.” Only then do the technologies filter into products for education, he said.

“I want to cut out the middle man,” he said, at the Oct. 2 technology summit of the school division of the American Association of Publishers.

Plans are for the two defense contractors to develop virtual-reality simulations or other software tools that bring to the classroom real-world activities involving STEM subjects and that connect company employees to science and engineering students and teachers in the Baltimore County schools.

Groundwork activities include teacher “externships,” visits to four participating schools, and joint planning sessions. Educators are now deciding on curriculum areas that could be addressed using the technology. Researchers at the Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Technology in Education have nearly completed a prototype digital environment for teaching science and math by having students conduct a search-and-rescue mission to find a child lost on Mount St. Helens.

It is unusual for Los Angeles-based Northrop Grumman and Bethesda, Md.-based Lockheed Martin to be working jointly, because the companies are fierce competitors for defense contracts and for the technically qualified workers near their facilities.

But the defense contractors have a common need to maintain the quality and quantity of those talent pools.

“Having technology and engineering students not just interested, but excited about majoring in engineering and science and technology is incredibly important to our industry and incredibly important to the nation,” said Stephanie C. Hill, vice president of programs and Baltimore site operations with Lockheed Martin Maritime Systems and Sensors division, which is based in Middle River, Md., and produces the Littoral Combat Ship, which the U.S. Navy calls its first “next-generation” combat vessel.