Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Tomorrow's Engineers


Twenty-nine students participated in the 2009 TRAC Summer Conference this summer. TRAC stands for Transportation and Civil Engineering Program, and offers hand-on experience to high school students who may become our future engineers.

One of the activities involved working at a traffic signal to take a traffic count. Students also received an overview of MoDOT and its divisions, and had a presentation regarding the No Zone and how they can stay safe around large trucks. (See the blog post from Aug. 21, "Disappearing Dump Trucks", for an eye-opening video of what the students learned)

Elizabeth Reed, with MoDOT's Equal Employement and Opportunity division, sees TRAC as a valuable opportunity to reach out to students.

"They were given an opportunity to learn engineering concepts and apply them to real-world situations," said Reed. "Hopefully, it will encourage them to become tomorrow's engineers."