Special Public Service Report

Dana Bivens Brown
City of Jacksonville
Air & Water Quality Division
Dlbrown@coj.net

On Oct. 9, 2002, at the Section of Environment, Energy, and Resources’ 10th Fall Meeting, a group of Section members put on the US vs. Bunyan Mock Trial at the Mark O. Hatfield Courthouse in Portland, Oregon, with 4th and 5th grade students from Arleta Elementary School (http://www.pps.k12.or.us/schools-c/profiles/?id=232). We chose Arleta Elementary School to participate in the Mock Trial with us as its students, many of them immigrants, are economically deprived. Seventy -five percent of the Arleta students live at the high poverty level and many of them have never even been downtown, even though it’s just across the river. Twenty-five percent of the students represent 14 different languages spoken.

The Mock Trial addresses the liability and culpability of Paul and Babe the Blue Ox resulting from their forest-leveling, lake-draining, “Tall Tales” antics pursuant to the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, and Endangered Species Act. The script alone is highly entertaining – and just as last year in St. Louis, the nine and ten year old kids “hamming up” the parts, including Paul, Babe, defense attorney, and the judge. They were outstanding!

The Honorable Anna Brown’s courtroom was the scene of this year’s escapade. And what a marvel of technology it was! Prior to putting on the Mock Trial, Judge Brown’s assistant, Steven Minetto, gave us a great talk about the courthouse, and what goes on in Judge Brown’s courtroom. He explained the courtroom’s telecommunications capabilities, and gave us a “John Madden telestrator” demonstration (for the Monday Night Footballwatchers) of the computer system. The opportunity to participate in the Mock Trial with Arleta Elementary was so special this year, as we had an opportunity to work with approximately 125 (!!) students and educate them about environmental and natural resource issues and the justice system. And these kids were remarkably knowledgeable about logging and the attendant environmental and natural resource issues.

After the big event, we held a special session at the Section Fall Meeting on Friday, Oct. 11, to share our experience and our pictures with the attendees to emphasize the importance of each Section member’s involvement in his or her community’s public school system. Although none of the teachers were able to attend the special session (it was a school holiday), the Section received an E-mail from the school thanking us for selecting Arleta for the Mock Trial. According to the teachers, the kids really enjoyed the experience and the Mock Trial fit well into their curriculum as they were all just beginning a unit on government. The teachers also claimed that the courthouse experience and the trial will be remembered for a long time by their kids!

My special thanks to the Honorable Anna Brown, and her assistant, Steven Minetto, for the wonderful experience in the courtroom. I thank Laura Kosloff for making the arrangements and setting up our Mock Trial at the Mark O. Hatfield Courthouse with Judge Brown and Mr. Minetto, and for participating with her two sons, Marcus and Marshall, in the Mock Trial. I would also like to thank Section members Mary Ellen Ternes, Seth Davis and Kate Whitby for volunteering their time to participate in the Mock Trial on behalf of the Section. Finally, I once again extend my sincere appreciation to Fred Faulkner, now formerly of our Section staff. He took great pictures of the Mock Trials for us and made slide presentations for the special session at the meeting.