Alice Grossman, Atiyya Shaw, Prabha (Popa) Pratyaksa, Aaron Greenwood, Randall Guensler, Yanzhi (Ann) Xu Use of Mobile Technologies in Attracting K-12 to Transportation TRB Education and Training Committee Webinar, July 1, 2015

Objectives for use of Technology in K-12 outreach Identify and explain topics in transportation using familiar and new technologies Collect data: – Traditional manual methods – New digital technologies Analyze data: – Generate of analytical graphs, charts, and maps – Basic descriptive statistics (standard software) Design and give a presentation that effectively communicates each step of the research process 2

Centennial Place Academy Partners 86% African American, 5% Caucasian, 2% Asian, 3% Hispanic, 4% Multi-racial Title 1 School (71% free/reduced lunch programs) Draws student population from the Centennial Place neighborhood and surrounding communities, including two shelters 1 st Atlanta Public School system charter school conversion Emphasis on project-based learning 3

Women and Minorities in Engineering Encourage young women and minorities to consider engineering from a young age 4 Charts from nsf.gov NOTE: Data not available for 1999 SOURCE: Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities in Science in Engineering Science and Engineering Degrees Earned by Underrepresented Minorities Low Participation Fields for Women

Technologies Employed Projects include the use of new Georgia Tech smart phones and tablet applications for data collection Students analyze data using standard software to familiarizes students with computational methods Researchers analyze the same data, developing more complex models software, and share outputs with students to enhance their understand of benefits of using advanced computational methods 5

Tablet Software 6 Traffic counting app screen shot Sidewalk Sentry app records sidewalk video, GPS, and vibration data Sidewalk Sentry Android App (Akanser et al., 2015) - records video, accelerometer readings, gyroscope data, and GPS position Vehicle Counting Android App - point and touch system to count vehicles on video

Commute Warrior Software The Commute Warrior Android app collects second- by-second position and speed data and the electronic travel diary allows users to input trip purpose and other data through the app interface or web page (Akanser et al., 2015) 7

Accessibility of Research Technology to Future Work Force Research topics encompass aspects of everyday life Students experience field data collection – Familiar tools (smartphones, tablets, computers) Data visualization (creating and interpreting charts) Develop engineering skill sets: – Research design – Organization and planning – Field data collection and teamwork – Critical thinking and mathematics – Oral and written communication 8

Outreach Program Framework One two-hour long session in May, 2014 with the entire 5 th grade class (82 students) – Overview presentation – Spilt into three groups for module activities Mode choice – computer modeling Travel diaries – smart phone apps Accessibility – tablet app and smart levels – Full group summary and discussion session Two full-day sessions in October 2014 with 19 returning students (now in 6 th grade) 9

A few examples…. 10

Short Module: Paper vs. Electronic Travel Diaries Students completed paper diaries from memory Compared paper diary with Smartphone automatic GPS data collection survey features Discussions revealed students’ interest in use of technology, ease, and higher resolution of data in Commute Warrior 11

Full Day Module: Pedestrian Accessibility This module brought students to three different locations in their school environment to measure aspects of pedestrian accessibility Module objectives: – Experience how people with limited mobility use pedestrian facilities – Learn how to use tape measures smart levels, and tablet apps to collect data – Analyze and present data 12

Full Day Module: Traffic Engineering 13 Objectives: Introduce field of traffic engineering and its significance in daily life First-hand experience in performing traffic counts Introduce common vehicle count data collection techniques Direct comparison of manual vs. digital methods Engage with hands-on activities using tablets and computer-based traffic simulation

Traffic Engineering Presentations Each small group created and executed a PowerPoint presentation with the participation of every student 14

Conclusions Exposure – Engaged women and minorities in STEM – Multiple aspects of the transportation discipline – Research uses with familiar technology Application of mobile technologies – Developed in on-going Georgia Tech research – Used in all stages of research process (data collection, analysis, communicating results) Materials are transferable – 15

Thank You We would like to acknowledge the research team members working on Vehicle counting, Sidewalk Sentry, Sidewalk Scout, and Commute Warrior Our gratitude also goes to the GT student chapters of ITE and WTS and to our generous project funders at the Southeastern Transportation Research, Innovation, Development, and Education Center (STRIDE) and Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) 16

Questions? transportation.ce.gatech.edu/education “Wheelchairs and Supershoes” The Commute Warrior travel diary smart phone application for Androids is available on the Google Play Store. A supplementary sidewalk data collection application, Sidewalk Scout is available for both Android and iPhone smartphones in the Google Play Store and Apple Store Alice Grossman 17