This July, 24 middle schoolers participated in CTS’s 11th annual National Summer Transportation Institute (NSTI). Throughout the free two-week program, campers explored transportation through field trips, hands-on lab activities, and presentations from industry professionals.
NSTI is designed to inspire the next generation of transportation professionals by introducing students to a variety of career pathways. The camp was funded by CTS and the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT), with support from the Minnesota Chapter of the American Public Works Association and the Minnesota Surveyors and Engineers Society.
This year, campers completed an infrastructure design challenge with CTS’s Accessibility Observatory to reduce traffic stress on campus. U Market Services introduced students to freight and logistics as they embarked on a shipping quest. The students also toured the Center for Resuscitation Medicine’s ECMO truck, the world’s first specialized emergency vehicle to bring advanced life support technology directly to cardiac patients in the field. In a session with MnDOT’s MnROAD Operations Engineer Ben Worel and STEM Education and Outreach Program Manager Marcia Lochner, campers also learned about materials used to build roads by making their own “asphalt” cookies.
Campers had interactive experiences with a range of transportation technologies, including land surveying and mapping with MnDOT’s augmented-reality sandbox, stratospheric ballooning with the Minnesota Space Grant Consortium, and unmanned aerial drones with MnDOT’s Aeronautics team. They got an up-close look at the MnCAV Ecosystem research vehicle and learned the ins and outs of connected and automated vehicle technology from the MnDOT CAV Office. And AAA Public Affairs Strategist Brynna Knapp led the students through an e-bike safety and city planning activity.
Over the course of the program, campers visited transportation-related facilities across the metro, including:
- A Cemstone and Dakota Aggregates facility, where campers got their hands dirty with raw materials and cement to learn how aggregate is mined, how concrete is made, and how these materials get from the earth to our roads.
- Hennepin County Public Works, featuring a Toward Zero Deaths safety presentation, where students tested their coordination skills while wearing impairment goggles.
- An active roadway construction site in Richfield to see the logistics of transportation planning and execution at work.
- The Metro Transit Green Line Operations and Maintenance facility, which they toured after riding the light rail.
- The U’s St. Anthony Falls Laboratory on the Mississippi River, where campers met with researchers who study fluid flow, the environment, and energy.
- Lock and Dam 1 in Minneapolis, where they got an up-close look at how people and goods move along the river.
- Minneapolis–St. Paul International Airport, where they visited the Sun Country hangar and FedEx Shipping Center.
- A campus tour from the Ramp Up to Readiness team.
Throughout the camp, students applied what they learned about bridge design and construction from CTS scholar Lauren Linderman and MnDOT staff by building hydraulic bridges out of popsicle sticks. At the NSTI closing ceremony, families and surprise guest Goldy Gopher cheered on the teams as they tested their bridges against increasing weight.
