1634110 - K12 STEM Outreach: Efforts to Fill the Workforce Pipeline

The transportation industry is currently facing dual workforce challenges. The first issue is that the industry has been experiencing a genuine revolution over the past decade due to the influence of emerging technologies. This includes new modes (e.x., ridehailing, bike and scooter share, etc.), smart cities concepts (e.x., autonomous vehicles, connected technology, etc.), and other new advancements (e.x., big data, generative artificial intelligence, etc.). These rapid advancements have left a lot of the current workforce un- and under-training for the challenges they face in their jobs. The second issue is the general shortage of workforce. A significant portion of the current workforce is either already, or will be within five years, of retirement age. As this generation retires, institutional knowledge will be lost and the workforce shortage will grow tremendously. Initiatives to address this need to happen at every level, even with elementary-, middle-, and high-school aged students. Over the past two years, the PacTrans Workforce Development Institute has engaged in two innovative K-12 STEM outreach efforts to expose students to the vast opportunities that the dynamic field of transportation has to offer. These efforts include a summer day camp about autonomous vehicles for middle school aged students, and a week-long summer residential transportation camp for high school aged students. This work presents details about those two efforts and summarizes lessons learned and best practices.