The Mississippi TRAnsportation and Civil Engineering (TRAC) program was established in 1997. TRAC is an educational outreach program developed by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials. This program provides students with challenging hands-on activities and exposes them to civil engineering and transportation-related careers.

In 2005, the Mississippi Department of Education (MDE) adopted TRAC into its Career and Computer Discovery curriculum. Now MDE sponsors TRAC trainings, and MDOT supplies the TRAC modules to the schools. With the support of the Mississippi Department of Transportation (MDOT) Commission and the Executive Director, MDOT and the State Department of Education are working as partners to provide TRAC to all middle school Discovery/Information and Communication Technology programs.

TRAC is divided into four educational modules: Bridge Design, City Planning, Design and Construction, and Magnetic Levitation. The modules feature professionally developed curricula and are correlated to the national standards of learning. Each module contains a teacher reference guide, a volunteer guidebook, and a QuickTimeTM movie demonstrating the activities.

MDOT has received state and national recognition for TRAC and our other transportation education programs. We are the recipients of the Governor’s Award for Partners in Education and the American Road and Transportation Builders PRIDE Award. In addition, we have been recognized as a national model for TRAC by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials.

Benefits of Transportation Education Programs

Educators:

• Appreciate ready-to-go lesson plans, activities, and materials
• Receive free training, resources, classroom visits, and on-call assistance
• Enjoy a popular and easy to use resource aligned with the math, science, and career and computer discovery curriculum
• Receive practical tools that help achieve test score targets

Mississippi:

• More young Mississippians are encouraged to pursue well-paying, stable technical careers—right here in Mississippi.
• Students (as well as their parents) develop an appreciation for transportation and other services provided by the state.
• Our departments of education, mental health, and transportation collaborate to achieve shared goals that broadly benefit our state.
• MDOT’s future workforce will be highly qualified with a passion for transportation problem-solving, instilled in them from the time they attended kindergarten.

If you have questions about MDOT’s TRAC program, contact the Outreach Division at (601) 359-7074 or by e-mail.

For more information on TRAC nationally, visit www.trac.net

Application for MDOT TRAC Program

For more information about MDE’s Information and Communication Technology curriculum, visit http://ict.rcu.msstate.edu/.