“REAL WORLD” EXPERIENCE IN HYDROGEOLOGY: THE MULTIDISCIPLINARY SYRACUSE MOCK TRIAL EXPERIENCE

Hydrogeology students need meaningful experiences incorporating the consulting and regulatory sides of their science. The course ,GOL 600-- “Contaminant Hydrogeology” (Syracuse University), serves this purpose by applying traditional academic learning to a semester-long class project ending with a civil “trial” . This trial includes Syracuse University Law School students as attorneys, a court reporter, a lay jury from the greater Syracuse Community, and a New York State Federal Appellate Judge running the trial. Student “consulting groups” independently obtain subsurface information on the geology, hydrogeology, and water quality but under realistic and different financial and regulatory constraints. The instructor provides requested data from a confidential MODFLOW/MT3D simulation of the contamination. Students prepare pre-filed technical reports and supplemental reports for the trial which includes direct and cross examination.

As an example of this course, we report on student experiences during the spring 2006 semester. Then, the contamination problem involved the fictional plaintiff, “Carrier Town” which sued Fukowi Corporation. (a machinery construction company) and Cleanerplace Incorporated (a dry cleaning business) for contaminated the town's drinking water with trichloroethylene (TCE). Forcing students from different scientific backgrounds to collectively interpret relatively scant data they generate themselves, and then publicly present it in a courtroom setting provides an unusually effective way to increase student interest, creativity, and their mastery of the subject matter, We suggest this kind of application-based teaching can be applied to other fields of geoscience education.