Garrett Morgan Sustainable Transportation Competition

The Garrett Morgan Sustainable Transportation Competition was instituted by former Secretary of Transportation Rodney Slater to encourage young people to consider careers in transportation. The Mineta Transportation Institute (MTI) has sponsored a competition every year since 2001. This competition is open to middle school classes, clubs, after-school programs, and any other youth-serving organizations.

If you are a middle-school teacher, club leader, or program counselor, you and your students can compete to win up to $1,000 for your classroom, club, or program, plus an all-expenses-paid trip to San Jose, California, to be honored at the MTI Awards Banquet. Sponsored by the US Department of Transportation, the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans), and other industry partners, this program engages students in science, technology, engineering, art, and math (STEAM) through a competition focused on sustainable transportation.

2024 Competition Theme

Here’s how it works

• MTI facilitates a partnership between the middle school participants and a transportation industry professional.
• MTI provides digital teacher guide at no cost for easy classroom lesson integration!
• Each participating teacher helps their team create a sustainable transportation project to present to the USDOT and other transportation leaders.
• Teams receive $50 to help with project expenses.
• Teacher, club leader, or program counselor leading a competing team receives a $500 honorarium at the conclusion of the competition.
• Teams review the competition prompt and choose one of the questions to explore a solution related to the year's theme. 
• The project can be a demonstration, model, PowerPoint, or other presentation suitable for a 7-10 minute video submission.
• Each participating team submits a 7-10 minute recording of their presentation.
• Judges, from different transportation agencies, universities, and/or MTI affiliates will score the presentations. 
• The winners will be announced via a virtual meeting 3 weeks after the submission deadline.
• First-place team receives a $1,000 cash prize, a plaque, and an all-expenses-paid trip for a teacher, two student representatives, and a parent or adult guardian to San José, CA for the MTI awards banquet, annually in June (pending state and county recommendations as they pertain to COVID-19).
• Second-place team receives $500 and a plaque.
• Third-place team receives $200 and a plaque.
• All students who compete will receive a signed certificate of participation from MTI.

Ready to Participate?

Contact MTI's Program Liaison Susan Vinh (susan.vinh@sjsu.edu) for more information on how to participate and to be connected with a transportation professional!

Competition Resources

• 2024 Competition Flyer
  • English
  • Spanish
• 2024 Competition Prompt
• 2024 Information Night Recording
• Competition Scoring Rubric 
• Teacher’s Guide (aligned with the Next Generation Science Standard and the California Common Core Standard)
  • Student Workbook
• Transportation Careers: Moving More Than People (25 mins. video)

Who was Garrett Morgan?

Garrett Augustus Morgan, an African-American inventor, was born in Kentucky in 1877 to formerly enslaved people Sydney Morgan and Elizabeth Reed Morgan. The seventh of ten children, he spent long days working on the family farm. He also attended school but had to quit at age 14 to earn a living. That did not discourage him – he moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, found work as a handyman, hired a tutor and continued learning. Mr. Morgan eventually moved to Cleveland and became prosperous as a sewing machine repairman with his own clothing manufacturing business that employed more than 30 people. Later, he established the Cleveland Call, a successful newspaper. 

The Gas Mask-- Saving Lives Since 1914

He had an excellent imagination and invented things we still use today, including a zig-zag stitching attachment for sewing machines. He also invented an early version of the gas mask. When an explosion occurred in a tunnel under Lake Erie, Mr. Morgan volunteered to rescue the trapped workers using his new invention to protect against the deadly fumes. It became an instant success, and he was given the Medal of Bravery by the citizens of Cleveland. He was nominated for the Carnegie Medal but was rejected, partly because he was black. Many fire departments wanted his gas mask, too, but they canceled their orders when they learned that a black man had invented it. So Garrett Morgan hired a white man to pretend he was the inventor, and the gas masks began to sell quickly.

Inventions That Stopped Traffic

As an early owner of an automobile, Mr. Morgan thought that roads could be safer if they had a better signaling device at intersections. At that time, the roadway was used for every mode of transportation – autos, wagons, streetcars, horses, bikes and pedestrians. The existing signals said only "stop" and "go," which meant that pedestrians were left to compete with all the other traffic. So Garrett Morgan invented a hand-cranked signal that would control traffic at an intersection, and then it would stop all traffic to allow pedestrians to cross. Just before his death in 1963, the U.S. government gave him an award for his invention. 

Past Garrett Morgan Winners