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NACASETAC BAY: AN INTERACTIVE CASE STUDY
Citation:
Berry, W J., E. D. Gallagher, I. G. Ingersoll, AND F. J. Keating. NACASETAC BAY: AN INTERACTIVE CASE STUDY. Presented at ACE/EPA Dredged Matereial Assessment Seminar, Baltimore, MD, April 10-12, 2001.
Description:
This interactive case study or "game" was created to provide a "hands on" experience in the application of a weight of evidence approach to sediment assessment. The game proceeds in two phases. In each phase the players work together as a group. A scenario is presented, and the group is given a laundry list of possible chemical analyses and biological tests which they can pay for. There is not enough time or money to do all of the analyses at all of the stations, so the group is forced to make decisions about which analyses they will buy, and to develop a sampling plan.
The data, analysis costs and times to completion are as "real world" as possible, but are deliberately contrived to be relatively simple, and to force certain choices on the part of the players. Arbitrary decisions about data limitations were made so that the game could be played in the allotted time. This is especially true early on. The toxicity, chemistry and benthic community data were arranged at each station to illustrate variability between stations, the costs (in terms of lost information) of the choices of data made by the players, and the possible patterns of data. They are not necessarily indicative of the relative frequency of "hits" from each of the indicators that would be expected in a real world situation.
The game is patterned after the EcoChallenge? game, developed by the American Industrial Health Council (AIHC). The authors would like to acknowledge the help of the AIHC in the creation of this exercise.