Civiltech’s Amanda Kleinwachter, P.E., volunteered with a summer camp at the Milwaukee School of Engineering (MSOE). Amanda discovered the program through the Wisconsin Chapter of WTS and jumped on the opportunity to participate. MSOE is next door to Civiltech’s Milwaukee location, and Amanda has been looking forward to connecting with MSOE students.
The camp included 8 high school students that were spending the week in Milwaukee and staying overnight in the dorms. Through the course of the week, they learned about the different types of engineering disciplines offered at the university.
Amanda participated in a civil engineering section that included a focus on transportation engineering. The session was led by Mitzi Dobersek, a transportation engineering professor at the university who is also a former WisDOT employee.
The session included a discussion on what transportation engineering is and how it impacts our lives including a discussion on who a stakeholder of an intersection is. This led to a focus on pedestrians as stakeholders. The students then went outside and traversed a crosswalk as two key pedestrian stakeholders: visually impaired and physically impaired. To simulate the two conditions, they crossed the intersection wearing blindfolds and took turns navigating it in a wheelchair. 
The rest of the session included how stakeholders are engaged on our projects through public involvement activities. Amanda gave an in-depth talk on stakeholder coordination and the public meeting process using presentation boards from Civiltech’s recent W. Walnut Street Protected Bike Lanes Project Public Involvement Meeting.
Amanda summed up the event as an extremely rewarding experience. The camp provided the opportunity to promote future internships Civiltech to the participants and the potential for future engagement with MSOE classes and students.