USING A MOCK TRIAL TO TEACH SCIENCE TO UNSCIENCE STUDENTS

Students, like jurors in a trial, learn in different ways. Most science courses taken by science majors are taught in a manner that facilitates learning based on methods that are appropriate to science students. In geoscience courses this usually emphasizes visual and tactile acuity, three-dimensional perception, sequential processing, and a realm rich in observations, facts, and theorems. Non-science students taking courses dominantly employing these learning styles can become frustrated because they may perceive the spatial world in two dimensions, process information in simultaneous ways, rely more heavily on their auditory and kinesthetic senses within a realm that is decidedly aesthetic or imaginary. The pedagogic approaches employed in science courses for non-scientists often do not recognize these differences in learning styles.

'Science in the Courtroom – The Woburn Toxic Trial' is a website near completion that uses actual trial documents and materials from the ‘A Civil Action' trial to teach science to non-science majors by casting them as scientific expert witnesses in a mock trial. The website is being developed jointly with the Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College with funding from the National Science Foundation. The website provides the scientific, historical, and legal information needed to conduct a mock trial including site-specific data presented in Google Earth format, copies of actual trial transcripts and exhibits, newspaper accounts of testimony, photographs, and the data by the plaintiffs' and the defendants' experts to construct water-table maps. Prior to the mock trial, the students volunteer to play the role of a character in the actual trial including writing an expert opinion, being deposed by opposing counsel, and presenting direct testimony and being cross examined during the mock trial. The construction of exhibits for the mock trial, the writing of an expert opinion, and the use of role playing enable non-science students to use their skills in ways are that non-traditional within science courses. The website contains 13 modules that focus on the interdisciplinary aspects of the Woburn Toxic Trial with specific modules highlighting issues related to health sciences (specifically cancer assessment), hydrogeology, trial procedures, and expert testimony.