The NC A&T outreach plan will leverage the existing SEEDs program at the Civil Engineering Department which has been in place since 2010 to specifically train middle school and high school deaf students about sustainability in transportation and construction. In addition, our outreach plan will be in-line with that of the well-established Transportation Institute educational at NC A&T. Furthermore, events such as Engineering Day, ASCE Luncheon and Seminar series would serve as other great outreach platforms for the CHPP center. Finally, as part of CHPP, we will develop an innovation platform, Aggie Shark Tank, for students to bring in their innovative ideas as relates to transportation and highway infrastructure. As such CHPP’s dissemination and outreach capability will be enhanced through collaboration and development of following programs in NC A&T:
- Aggie Shark Tank
The program will be developed to encourage students innovation related to transportation and highway infrastructure. Student teams submit a ten minute presentation slide deck about their innovative ideas which will be then reviewed by a group of experienced volunteer judges consist of industry practitioners, business Leaders and CEOs. Selected teams will then present their pitches and compete for a total of $1,000 award. The winner teams will be also assigned to a technical advisor from CHPP to further develop their idea via laboratory experiments, literature search, industry meeting, customer interview, etc. The pipeline of students to Aggie Shark Tank is expected to be mainly from Transportation courses taught through Civil Engineering department; however, the competition will be open to entire student body. The competition is expected to be scheduled toward the end of each semester (in November and April of each year) to ensure that students have acquired adequate knowledge through related academic courses. The program will be also promoted by faculty members in charge of transportation related courses to encourage students’ participation.
- Annual SEEDS (Science and Engineering Enrichment for Deaf Students)Program
The program is organized annually in conjunction with Energy Day at NC A&T State University. Deaf and hard of hearing students from local middle schools and high schools participate in a full-day workshop and training program related to sustainability in transportation and construction. They receive hands on training on construction materials testing and characterization and they learn about three aspects of sustainability (equity, economy and environment) while getting to know various sources of construction and importance of maintaining and preserving highway infrastructures.
- Summer High School Transportation Institute (STI)
Summer High School Transportation Institute is a five week program on NC A&T campus targeting high performing high school juniors and seniors. The objective is to introduce students to the Transportation field and encourage them to continue their studies at the college level. Students are introduced various aspects of transportation and visit transportation sites including a major port and other transportation facilities in Washington DC. NC A&T’s center for Highway Pavement Preservation contributes to the STI training by providing lecture and hands on training as relates to pavement materials characterization, performance analysis and pavement preservation practices.
- Engineering Day
During the Engineering day, the college of engineering hosts more than 700 students (K-12) and engage them through more than 20 educational stations organized and host by various programs and research group on campus. Civil Engineering department in which the Center for Highway Pavement Preservation (CHPP) will be housed annually organizes four educational stations. As part of the CHPP outreach program at NC A&T, we will host a station related to pavement maintenance and preservation.
- ASCE Monthly Luncheon and Seminar
As part of collaboration between the Civil Engineering Department and ASCE Northern branch, the ASCE’s monthly Lunch and seminar series is host in NC A&T. The event participants ranging from 25-35 consists of local industry practitioners, construction contractors, students and academicians. The even provides a great outreach platform for CHPP; in addition, involvement of Dr. Fini as the president of the ASCE Northern branch facilitates such collaboration between the center and the ASCE branch.