4190 Bell Engineering Center
1 University of Arkansas
Fayetteville, Arkansas 72701
479-575-6021
martrec@uark.edu
K-12 Outreach
GirlTREC 2023
We held our fifth annual Girls Transportation Engineering Camp (GirlTREC) on the University
of Arkansas campus in July 2023. The one-week day camp is designed for rising sixth
and seventh grade girls to engage with transportation–focused STEM activities and
learn about future career opportunities in transportation engineering. The camp provides
campers with engaging, hands-on activities related to transportation engineering from
drones, roads, rail, to waterways and gives them daily opportunities to engage with
female engineers and engineering students. Below Grant Brewer, Manager Community &
Workforce Development of DroneUp shows the campers how a drone works.
STEMusical Bridges Art and Science for Local Students
STEM Musical created by Gary Prinz, associate professor of civil engineering, along with the partnership of Adriane Hapgood, music teacher at Root Elementary School. In October 2022, 50 fourth graders took to the stage to sing about waterways and structures. Two of the songs “Waterway Designs” set to the tune of “9 to 5” by Dolly Parton and “Fatigue” set to the tune of “Happy” by Pharrel Williams were performed.
Girls STEM Academy Summer Program includes robotics and designing automated vehicles
The Girls STEM Academy Summer Program was held in July 2022, in the John A. Peoples Science Building at Jackson State University. The program introduces girls in grades ninth through twelve to science, technology, engineering and mathematics and include short courses on robotics as well as programming and designing automated vehicles. The academy is managed by the College of Science, Engineering and Technology.
GirlTREC 2019
GirlTREC focuses on hands-on activities related to transportation engineering from roads to rail to waterways and is designed to build courage and interest towards studying STEM fields and considering a career in the transportation industry. Our interactive programs are taught by faculty at the University of Arkansas’ civil and industrial engineering departments and include activities in bridge construction, social media data during disaster response, and traffic control systems.
Exposure to STEM—Diversity in Maritime Transportation
Students from Little Rock Central High School visited Murray Lock and Dam along the McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System for a Lock and Dam tour on April 2, 2019. The tour was guided by Eric Gillepsie, the Lock Master for the Murray Lock and Dam. Dr. Rick Coffman, from the University of Arkansas, and graduate student Anh Tran talked about the need for the lock and dam system and encouraged students to pursue careers in the STEM fields.
The Gulf Coast Center for Evacuation and Transportation Resiliency...
hosted a session of hands-on activities for the LSU Recruiting into Engineering High-Ability Multicultural Students (REHAMS) summer camp on June 14, 2018 and the LSU Halliburton Xploration Camp Inspiring Tomorrow's Engineers (XCITE) summer camp on July 10, 2018. The REHAMS summer camp is offered every year to rising 11th and 12th grade students. The XCITE summer camp is also offered every year to rising 9th, 10th, and 11th grade female students. These summer camps provide an opportunity to explore, create, and compete in a variety of engineering and college preparatory activities to encourage interest in a career in STEM. During the sessions, the students planned, designed and built a city using toothpicks and gummies. They also used paper roads to create a transportation system that provided accessibility and connectivity. To mimic the planning and design of real cities, the students were limited by design constraints, time, and resources. For example, students needed to design their cities around hypothetical lakes, rivers, wetlands, underground pipelines, street light poles, and trees. Their structures also needed to support the weight of a book without failing.
MarTREC hosted thirty-five fifth and sixth grade girls in July at our new GirlTREC summer camp. The camp focused on hands-on activities related to transportation engineering from roads to rail to waterways and was designed to build courage and interest towards studying STEM fields and considering a career in the transportation industry.
University of New Orleans Transportation Institute partners annually with Riverworks Discovery for their career awareness program for high school students known as "Who Works the Rivers." The program is a one day event which begins with an introductory lesson using content from the "Energy and Our Rivers Curriculum" developed by NEED corporation.
The Mississippi Summer Transportation Institute (MSTI) at JSU aims at introducing a diverse group of motivated pre-college students to the transportation industry.
Several engineering students volunteered during spring break to help others "Dream BIG." These College of Engineering students led a hands-on water filter project for the 40 girls, who participated through the Volunteer Action Center's Alternative Spring Break. The participants were teenage girls from the Marvel-Elaine school district.
