Achievement

IGERT trainee Jeffrey Clark headed up a group of six undergraduate students for a US EPA-funded P3 (People, Prosperity and Planet) Student Design Competition for Sustainability project entitled “Promoting Sustainable Transportation among Teens.” The project used a group project-based approach that paired engineering students as mentors with teams of high school students to design, build, and analyze electric bikes as an option for commuting to school. The undergraduate students were from four engineering departments: chemical, electrical, mechanical and civil engineering. Clark’s role was to coordinate the authorship of the final report and to advise the team on the development of sustainability analyses of personal transportation modes such as buses, standard cars, electric cars and electric bikes for short distance trips. The project results show that the high school students’ attitudes shifted to favor lower impact forms of transportation after participating in the project.