Journal of Microbiology & Biology Education (Jan 2012)
Role-Based Panel Discussions to Teach Socio-Economic Consequences of Wastewater Treatment
Abstract
Wastewater treatment is getting more and more complex. From a biotechnological point of view, numerous new treatment techniques have been established in the past two decades to meet the increasing need to remove harmful substances. In addition, wastewater treatment is governed by socio-economic and geopolitical interests. As discussions outside the scientific community often include irrational reasoning, students need to be trained to react to invalid arguments. By use of a role-based panel discussion, this goal could be reached.