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New and Improved Environmental Teaching Tool Launches
updated
04.10.08
Brownfield
Action (BA) is the award-winning and unique multimedia-learning
program designed to teach users about the impact of brownfields
(properties that may be threatened by the presence or potential
presence of hazardous waste or pollutants) on communities.
The program is a network-based simulation of a virtual town
that is home to a contaminated brownfield site. Students role-play
as two-person teams from environmental consulting companies
who conduct interviews, investigate the site, and assess the
situation. The virtual world is complete with characters,
unexpected plot lines and vast amounts of complex information
for the students to grapple with as they compete to figure
out the source of the contamination. The technology was originally
developed to teach students about the typical and atypical
problems facing environmental consultants today.
Peter
Bower, Senior Lecturer of Environmental Science at Barnard
College, created the simulation program in collaboration with
the Columbia Center for New Media Teaching and Learning (CCMTL)
and has been using the curriculum in his Introduction to Environmental
Science course for the past seven years. "When we first
ran the program our original server could only support 20
to 30 users online at any given time," said Bower. "So
it was difficult for everyone who wanted to use the program
to do so. We actually had to turn people away." Not anymore.
Thanks to a $450,000 grant from the National Science Foundation
received in February 2007, Bower was able to upgrade the entire
system and re-install it on a server robust enough to handle
nearly unlimited users on
the website, the program's portal. The new system is now
known as "Brownfield 3.0."
Introducing
Brownfield Action 3.0 to the world
On April 11 and 12, educators, scientists, government officials
and environmental consultants will gather at a two-day seminar
in New York to witness the official launch of Brownfield Action
3.0. "Our main objective is to promote and disseminate
the BA curriculum for about 30 participants," said Bower,
who is leading the seminar. "The participants are an
eclectic group. It's not just professors who are interested,
but high school teachers, and it's not just environmental
consultants, but also municipalities and community activists,"
he said. After a welcome dinner on April 11, participants
will spend the following day at a series of lectures, workshops,
and laboratory sessions to gain an in-depth, hands-on experience
of the program. On hand to answer questions about their own
experiences using BA include Professor Douglas Thompson (Connecticut
College), Professor Art Kney (Lafayette College), Professor
Saugata Datta (Georgia College & State University) and
Professor Joseph Liddicoat (NYU School of Continuing Education).
Ryan Kelsey,
Associate Director of the CCNMTL, will gather and analyze
immediate feedback from the seminar participants as well as
provide follow-up over the course of a year on the long-term
impact of the seminar. Kelsey and Alice Cox, also of CCNMTL,
have collaborated with Bower to provide the technological
support necessary to realize the BA pedagogy envisioned by
Bower. Kelsey has worked with Bower since the project's inception,
over eight years ago; Cox came on board two years ago.
The technology
developed by Kelsey, Cox and Bower has proven to be adaptable
to a variety of uses and settings. "This program allows
professors and others to take what they need from it,"
said Bower. "For example, I use Brownfield Action for
a whole semester in the laboratory, but others might only
want to take a certain section of the program to use in their
class or office for 2 or 3 weeks. Users can also share their
experiences in our new online library of user cases."
Learning
inside a virtual world
While BA involves a three-dimensional, virtual world where
students role-play as two-person teams from environmental
consulting companies, it is certainly no video game. The program
is a realistic simulation, designed to help students gain
"real world" experience in environmental science.
"In
most science classes, unless you have an internship you don't
get hands on experience," said Bower. "Brownfield
Action helps students gain an unprecedented appreciation for
the complexity, ambiguity, and risk involved in environmental
assessments."
Other
professors who have used the program agree. "The Brownfield
Action program has revolutionized how groundwater contamination
problems are approached and studied in my class and has provided
a level of realism to the exercise," said Douglas Thompson,
Professor of Geology at Connecticut College, one of the schools
currently using the BA curriculum. "Given my personal
work experience in the groundwater consulting industry, I
am extremely impressed with how real the simulation is,"
said Thompson.
For more
information, visit: brownfieldaction.org
—Maya
Dollarhide
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