Portland State University

Due to the global pandemic and the need to keep our communities safe from COVID-19, we are transitioning from a one-week residential camp to a four-week virtual camp, with online sessions each Monday and Wednesday morning. We will provide updates as we continue to develop the curriculum and structure of this brand-new virtual camp!

We'll hear from PSU faculty and professionals from public and private transportation agencies that operate in the Portland metro area. We're also incorporating some outdoor activities to help improve students' awareness and familiarity with infrastructure and data collection.

WHAT YOU'LL GET OUT OF THE CAMP

• Introduce you to professional women in transportation
• Learn about the broad range of transportation careers and sectors
• Understand the social justice and equity issues within transportation and how it relates to you, your family and your neighborhood
• Introduce you to transportation systems in Portland
• Connect with other high school students who are passionate about careers in transportation too
• Have fun! 

TENTATIVE AGENDA*

This agenda is still being developed and is subject to change.

This annual event is hosted at Portland State University by event partners Transportation Research and Education Center at PSU and ChickTech

OVERVIEW

Mapping and spatial analysis has been evolving as an important field of study for centuries. In contemporary times, we refer to it as “GIS”, which stands for Geographic Information Science. Join us at this one-day workshop for high school girls to become familiar with creating and interpreting maps and doing spatial analysis, by working with vehicle crash data from the City of Portland. 

The workshop, held in the Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) lab of PSU’s Engineering Building, consists of a morning instruction session and an afternoon applied activity using your newfound GIS skills. Students will be introduced to the basic elements of ArcGIS — including importing data, exploring spatial databases, and visualizing data in different ways through map design. Students will get to make their own interactive web maps using data from their city and neighborhoods.

The day also includes a walking tour of the Portland State University campus to get a real world look at how the transportation issues we learn about in class play out on the ground. By the end of the day you will have a working understanding of GIS and mapping and new ideas for how...