The compounding elements of toxic releases make teaching and learning about them difficult. For e... more The compounding elements of toxic releases make teaching and learning about them difficult. For example, toxic releases have multifarious source/sink dynamics, high-stakes risk profiles, complex timelines and passionate stakeholders with conflicting concerns and objectives. Furthermore, the environmental and health-related impacts of hazardous releases are difficult to pin down and challenging for scientists to communicate to stakeholders. As a result, the management of toxic releases and associated processes of risk reduction and policy development are difficult to explore in conventional classroom settings. Toxic Release is a high-touch educational game created by students and faculty at SUNY Plattsburgh. The simulation is designed to overcome barriers to teaching and learning about toxics and environmental governance. The project is supported by the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) University Challenge, an outreach program intended to spur creative research and education about the threats posed by hazardous pollutants. This brief pedagogical report outlines the history and details of the TRI, describes EPA’s TRI University Challenge program, and outlines the learning objectives of Toxic Release as well as preliminary observations about the project’s outcomes.
The compounding elements of toxic releases make teaching and learning about them difficult. For e... more The compounding elements of toxic releases make teaching and learning about them difficult. For example, toxic releases have multifarious source/sink dynamics, high-stakes risk profiles, complex timelines and passionate stakeholders with conflicting concerns and objectives. Furthermore, the environmental and health-related impacts of hazardous releases are difficult to pin down and challenging for scientists to communicate to stakeholders. As a result, the management of toxic releases and associated processes of risk reduction and policy development are difficult to explore in conventional classroom settings. Toxic Release is a high-touch educational game created by students and faculty at SUNY Plattsburgh. The simulation is designed to overcome barriers to teaching and learning about toxics and environmental governance. The project is supported by the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) University Challenge, an outreach program intended to spur creative research and education about the threats posed by hazardous pollutants. This brief pedagogical report outlines the history and details of the TRI, describes EPA’s TRI University Challenge program, and outlines the learning objectives of Toxic Release as well as preliminary observations about the project’s outcomes.
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Papers by Caitlin Briere