Introduction
The acronym CARS stands for Career Awareness: Roadway to Success. The curriculum was developed to provide instructional materials for teachers of ninth-grade Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) courses.
The Mississippi Department of Transportation (MDOT), in seeking to enrich the STEM curriculum while exposing students to possible careers in engineering and transportation, partnered with Mississippi educators and project managers at Mississippi State University’s Research and Curriculum Unit (RCU) to develop CARS.
The program started when RCU project coordinators and interested Mississippi teachers crafted a proposal for total grant funding of $60,000 from MDOT. The proposal included funds for instructional materials to be used in the classroom to enhance the new ninth-grade STEM curriculum. A select number of secondary teachers in the state developed materials for CARS; the RCU Print Shop printed all materials needed for the project; and supplemental videos featuring MDOT employees at work were provided by MDOT.
In the development process, STEM teachers who contributed to CARS shadowed MDOT engineers as they performed their routine job duties. Each teacher was required to shadow an engineer for 40 hours. The teachers will share their first-hand experiences with their students as they implement the CARS curriculum into their classrooms.
After visiting with MDOT representatives, the authors of the CARS lesson plans created activities that reflected what they had learned combined with their experience in mathematics. Their lessons are included in units based on general knowledge and basic shapes of data, linear functions and linear regression, rates of change, quadratic and absolute value equations, systems of equations, the Pythagorean theorem, and the application of mathematical formulas including area and volume. These lessons will be used in tandem with the videos featuring MDOT employees at work.
With the expected increase in transportation-related jobs, the workforce must be equipped to fulfill the needs of the transportation industry. The students will benefit from this supplemental STEM program in the ninth-grade curriculum by learning more about science- and technology related fields.
Download the entire document - CARS 2009 (PDF)
