The proposed research activities as part of the CHPP’s mission will enable the education and training of graduate and undergraduate students at the University of Illinois as well as college-bound students in secondary schools. Education and training of graduate and undergraduate students represent an important component of our research. UIUC’s outreach plan will be executed using the following channels described next.
- 1. Education and training at the undergraduate and graduate level
The students who will participate in this program will benefit from learning the fundamentals of a multidisciplinary field encompassing civil engineering, mechanical engineering, computational mechanics, and material science while developing novel computational methods and receiving hands-on laboratory experience its use in the practical world. The students will be familiar with the concepts of sustainability by preserving natural resources, managing a network of pavements within fiscal constraints, and reducing greenhouse emissions. The research findings will be disseminated through regular seminars taking place each semester in the department, publication in scientific journals, presentations and mini-symposia at major conferences.
The outcome of the research can also be used as teaching materials for the following undergraduate and graduate level classes taught by the investigators of this work:
CEE 405 – Asphalt materials (offered every year in fall semester)
CEE 406 – Pavement Analysis and Design, I (offered every year in fall semester)
CEE 498 – Sustainable pavement systems (First offered in fall 2013 and will continue every two years)
CEE 508 – Pavement maintenance, rehabilitation, and evaluations (offered every two years in spring semester)
- 2. Training camps for high school students and minorities
Minorities and women have a lower representation in the science and engineering programs in universities. Several reasons suggested for this disconnect is due to lack of knowledge and emphasis on the social value and relevance of science, mathematics and engineering subject matters as well as the lack of multi-disciplinary project teams. The disconnection between subject material and life applicability has been shown to affect the retention of women in engineering. The research targeted by CHPP provides an ideal platform to emphasize social and environmental relevance of basic science and engineering subject matters. The strong societal impact and creation of multi-disciplinary teams will be crucial to attract female and underrepresented minorities for the graduate and undergraduate student positions supported by this research.
The investigators of this research planning to reach out high school students, females and minorities in particular, through mainly summer camps and open house activities described below.
Women in Engineering G.A.M.E.S Camp
Girls’ adventures in mathematics, engineering, and science (G.A.M.E.S.) will be the primary channel for our outreach activities. This is an annual week long camp designed to give academically talented high school girls an opportunity to explore exciting engineering and scientific fields through demonstrations, classroom presentations, and hands-on activities. The investigators of this research have already started to communicate with the organizers of the camp to schedule half-a-day activity. The planned activities will take place at ATREL (Advance Transportation and Research and Engineering Laboratory) with hands-on laboratory demonstrations and classroom activities. The primary objective of the activities is to highlight importance of environmental considerations in transportation engineering with practical examples and quantify the impact of savings in greenhouse gas emissions and consumptions of natural resources. Pavement preservation applications are excellent examples to quantify such savings.
Further information about the G.A.M.E.S. camp can be found in the following link:
http://publish.illinois.edu/womeninengineering/camps/g-a-m-e-s-camp/\
The camp’s meeting will take place July 13 – July 19, 2014. Since the program is already finalized, we are only going to supplement some of the activities to gain some experience and become familiar with the camp’s expectations. The proposed outreach activities will be a part of next year’s summer camp.