Workforce Development Council

K-12 Education Resources

Welcome to a collection of engaging K-12 activities that introduce students to the fascinating world of transportation engineering. These resources, created by various University Transportation Centers (UTCs), are brought together here as part of the Workforce Development Council of the Transportation & Development Institute (T&DI) of ASCE’s effort to inspire the next generation of engineers. While we, as the TBD Center, did not create these materials, we are proud to serve as a central hub, making them easily accessible to educators and students. All credit and attribution of these materials goes to the respective UTC.

We have made all of the materials, as much as possible, available for download to provide easy access. Please note that the content may be updated periodically by the original creators. For the latest version and additional materials, we encourage you to visit the original source through the listed links.

• Grades 1-6: Elementary Lesson Plans

  These lesson plans on STEM transportation units were developed as a part of the Mineta Transportation Institute to introduce the basics of how people and goods are moved. Two sets of units on climate change, transportation and high speed rail and sustainable transportation are available. Within each lesson plan, there are different units and different lesson plans targeted to different grade levels. In addition to the two lesson plans, there are “how we move” and “how goods move” cards that can be used to introduce how people and goods move to students.

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• Grades 3-5: Elementary School STEM Curriculum

  This curriculum, developed as a part of the University Transportation Center for Railway Safety (UTCRS) describes activities that can be done for a week-long camp. The activities can be implemented individually as needed as well. The overall theme focuses on learning about engineering and programming.

  Download (.pdf)

• Grades 4-6: Exploring the Science of Retro Reflectivity

  This lesson plan was developed as a part of the Safety through Disruption (Safe-D) University Transportation Center. This includes a lesson plan for five units that are expected to be taught in sequence to introduce retro reflectivity to students, including activities on how light travels and how to improve visibility.

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• Grades 6-8: Middle School STEM Curriculum

  This curriculum developed as a part of the University Transportation Center for Railway Safety (UTCRS) describes activities that can be done for a week-long camp. The activities can be implemented individually as needed as well. The overall theme focuses on learning about engineering and programming.

  Download (.pdf)

• Grades 6-8: Signal Timing Simulation and Live Role-play Activities

  These activities were developed as a part of the Maritime Transportation Research and Education Center. The activities described are for a short workshop introducing middle school students to traffic signal timing.

  Lecture slides (.pdf)

  Lecture slides (.ppt)

  GirlTREC 2019 Lesson Plans (.doc)

  GirlTREC 2019 Handout Packet (.doc)

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• Grades 6-8: Graph Interpretation & Motion Investigation

  This curriculum, as a part of Safer-Sim UTC, aims to teach middle school students about the motions of force and friction. Several short lesson plans are introduced; however, the day-long lesson plans require access to a driving simulator.
  
  Download (.pdf)

• Grades 5-12: Transportation Engineering & Design Activities

  These lesson plans were developed as a part of the Southeastern Transportation Research, Innovation, Development, and Education Center. It includes three activities on designing streets for everyone, curb design: creating an enjoyable downtown, and designing an app for safety school zones. The activities are expected to take 1 to 3 hours each.

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• Grades 6-12: A Smart Bike Project

  This lesson plan was developed as a part of the National Institute for Transportation and Communities. This includes seven lessons on smart bikes that are hosted on YouTube and free of charge. Additionally, students are expected to have access to the hardware and software tools as necessary to follow along and work on designing, developing and deploying an on-bike computer that can link to V2X infrastructure.

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• Grades 6-12: Interdisciplinary Education Outreach with Traffic Sensor Build Kits

  This curriculum was developed as a part of the Maritime Transportation Research and Education Center. The activities aim to develop traffic sensors, specifically focusing on inductive loop detectors. There are two different scenarios aimed at middle school or high school students.
  
  Download (.pdf)

• Grades 9-12: Traffic Control Systems Workshop

  These activities were developed as a part of the Maritime Transportation Research and Education Center. The activities are aimed at hosting a STEM day for high school students, introducing signal timing and learning about traffic control simulators. 
  
  Teaching Materials:
  STEM Day Presentation (.pdf)
  STEM Day Instructor Guide (.pdf)
  STEM Handout (.pdf)
  STEM Day Handout (.pdf)
   
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• Grades 9-12: High School STEM Curriculum

  This curriculum, developed as a part of the University Transportation Center for Railway Safety (UTCRS), describes activities that can be done for a week-long camp. The activities can be implemented individually as needed as well. The overall theme focuses on learning about engineering and programming. It includes an introduction to Python, along with sensor programming and hardware applications.

  Download (.pdf)

   

• Grades 9-12: GIS Training in Transportation

  This lesson plan was developed as a part of the National Institute for Transportation and Communities. This is a four-week training workshop in ArcGIS aiming to teach high school students geographic information systems (GIS) and spatial reasoning skills.
  
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• Grades 9-12: Transportation Curriculum

  This lesson plan was developed by the Transportation Research and Education Center at Portland State University. This includes four modules for high school students aimed at being provided as a week-long summer camp. The modules aim to provide students with creative ways of observing transportation systems through data collection, evaluating accessibility, and learning about livable communities.
  
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• Teacher Education

  Additional resources are available for K-12 teacher education, specifically to implement transportation engineering-related activities. More information on these can be found below:
  
  Resource 1
  Resource 2 (.pdf)