Gearing Up for Transportation Engineering, A Summer Institute Phase II.

摘要

The numbers of female and minority students enrolled in engineering schools are increasing slowly; however, a relatively small percentage of these students are drawn to the field of transportation engineering. For this reason, there is a need to educate young people about the profession and to encourage under-represented individuals to appreciate the contributions of engineers and to become civil engineers. This Summer Institute project consisted of two groups of twenty middle school students who were invited to the University of Alabama in Huntsville campus to learn about engineering as a career and to experience a variety of transportation engineering design topics. The participants gained knowledge about the role of engineers in society, and learned how engineers use their knowledge in design applications. Five University of Alabama System engineering faculty members, as well as professionals representing Society of Women Engineer (SWE) and National Society of Black Engineers, served as instructors for the hands-on laboratory sessions. As an important part of this project, minority and female engineering students served as mentors for the program.