Incorporating problem-based learning exercises into an environmental health curriculum

Environmental health professionals are often confronted with difficult conflicts involving multiple stakeholders. A problem-based-learning approach was used to engage students in a mock conflict resolution exercise involving the heavily publicized dispute over industrial contamination of an aquifer supplying drinking water to neighborhoods in Woburn, Massachusetts. This dispute provided the basis for the bestselling novel A Civil Action, by Jonathan Harr, as well as a major motion picture bearing the same name. Students were assigned to one of three stakeholder groups: the affected families, an industry consortium, or state and federal regulatory authorities. These stakeholder groups were then directed to participate in alternative-dispute-resolution mock negotiations, with the course instructor serving as a neutral facilitator. The "problem" the students were assigned was to reach a consent agreement that was acceptable to all three stakeholder groups. Two groups of undergraduate students (from different semesters) successfully completed all five phases of this endeavor, with nearly unanimous agreement that the approach was more rapid and potentially less expensive than the civil-litigation process portrayed in the book and movie. The alternative-dispute-resolution approach also provided a less adversarial environment, thereby allowing the industry and community groups to work together to forge a more creative, long-term agreement than that which resulted from the actual civil litigation.