Urban Studies and Planning Commons^™

Investigations In Transportation, William G. Becker, Carol Biskupic Knight

TREC Final Reports

The Investigations in Transportation program is an elementary school partnership and curriculum development project that will engage science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) professionals in school-based activities and projects that will bring real-world applications to elementary classrooms for grades 3-5. The Portland Metro STEM Partnership (PMSP) is providing leadership and facilitation to a team of educators from Portland State University, Beaverton School District and Hillsboro School District who will work with volunteers from the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) to design, develop, implement and assess the impact of an in-class unit entitled "Investigations in Transportation". This report presents a study …

Transportation Leadership Education: Portland Traffic And Transportation Course A Case Study And Curriculum, Nathan Mcneil

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

The Portland Traffic and Transportation course serves a number of different purposes. On one hand, it is designed to develop citizens who are informed about the transportation system, including how it got where it is today, what agencies and actors play a role in its operation and development, and how they, as citizens, play a role in its future. In this sense, there is a goal of broadening and deepening the existing knowledge about the system among the general population. On the other hand, there is an implicit goal of encouraging participation in the system with the understanding that doing …

Closing The Gap: Developing A Transportation Curriculum For The Oregon Young Scholars Program: Project Summary Report, Carla Gary, Bethany Steiner, Chuck Kalnbach

TREC Project Briefs

This OTREC educational proposal links experiential and transportation education from the University of Oregon with minority youth during the Summer ‘08 two-week session of the Oregon Young Scholar’s Program (OYSP). The grant provides OYSP an opportunity to create a transportation based curriculum during the Summer ‘08 program with the ultimate purpose of increasing minority interest and hopefully eventual employment in transportation related fields. OYSP was developed in 2005 to nurture the potential of marginalized minority students, to prepare these students for higher education, and to increase the awareness of their parents or caregivers about what it will take for these …

Bicycle And Pedestrian Engineering Design Curriculum Expansion, Ashley Haire

TREC Final Reports

This project summary report describes the execution of OTREC Project #298 (Development, Deployment and Assessment of a New Educational Paradigm for Transportation Professionals and University Students). The project is one facet of a multiyear collaboration of the Region X Transportation Consortium that was sponsored by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). The regional collaboration aims to shift the traditional paradigm of engineering course delivery to foster a more hands-on approach. The University of Idaho, for example, has created activity-based modules for a traffic signals course, while the University of Washington developed similar modules for a freight systems course. The focus of …

Bicycle And Pedestrian Design Curriculum Expansion, Lynn Weigand

TREC Final Reports

This project broadened course offerings on bicycle and pedestrian transportation by redesigning and expanding an existing, three credit undergraduate/graduate course into a five-credit course that includes an applied lab component. The course was open to graduate and undergraduate students in planning and engineering programs. The PI (Lynn Weigand, Ph.D., adjunct faculty) and Mia Birk, adjunct faculty course instructor, developed the course with the following learning objectives:

• learn principles of bicycle and pedestrian facility design;
• understand integration of bicycle and pedestrian facilities within the right-of-way;
• understand basic transportation research and data collection methods; and
• apply course content through project work.

The …

Connecting Students And The Community, Lynn Weigand

TREC Project Briefs

Nationwide, few university courses focus specifically on planning and design for pedestrian and bicycle facilities. Before this project, Portland State University had only one three-credit course on the subject, which did not provide adequate time to cover all aspects of bicycle and pedestrian transportation planning, policy, design and practice. Although the course provided a useful introduction to the topic and received excellent student reviews, faculty members saw a need to expand the curriculum to provide an opportunity for practical application of the theory and practice and increase the course’s academic rigor.

This project broadened the course offerings on bicycle and …

Linking Experiential Learning To Community Transportation Planning, Robert Parker, Bethany Johnson

TREC Final Reports

This OTREC education proposal will link experiential education with local transportation planning through a collaborative partnership between the University of Oregon and the City of Eugene. Educators have long worked to find pedagogical approaches that yield the best educational results. This is particularly true in the planning disciplines where there is an ongoing dialog among academics and practitioners about how to most effectively train aspiring professionals.1 To provide a mix of academic and practical experience, most planning programs include a mixture of theoretical and applied curriculum. The American Planning Association (APA) recognizes this need and as a result, APA accredited …