GEARING UP FOR TRANSPORTATION ENGINEERING, A SUMMER INSTITUTE

In past years University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) and American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) have worked with schools in the area, and they became aware that local public schools do not benefit as highly from the technical community as the Huntsville City Schools. In addition, Madison County schools have a high ratio of minority students, approximately 25% of total enrollment. As a consequence, local county middle and "science magnet" school principals and teachers will be asked to nominate students for this institute. Under-represented students, females and minorities, will be especially targeted. A committee consisting of representatives from each of the participating groups will select 20 participants based on potential rather than classroom grades. This summer institute project consists of bringing selected students to the UAH campus to learn about various aspects of engineering and experience transportation-related design and safety topics. Recent efforts to reform science education in schools have led to the development of the Science/Technology/Society (STS) teaching method. Some important aspects of the STS method are that students must feel a concept is personally useful for solving specific problems and students who learn through an experience will retain information and will be better able to apply the information later to new situations. Instructional and interactive experiences will be developed with this grant to motivate interest in transportation engineering and related science topics. Once the individual projects and full curriculum are developed and tested, the program can also be implemented for on-site school visits. A project deliverable will be a manual detailing all aspects of the program for these visits.