Understanding Public Policy Making through the Work of Committees: Utilizing a Student-Led Congressional Hearing Simulation

In an effort to help students better understand the complexity of making environmental policy and the role of policy actors in this process, we developed a mock congressional hearing simulation. In this congressional hearing, students in two environmental policy courses take on the roles of members of Congress and various interest groups to examine the issue of hydraulic fracturing (or fracking). Here, we describe the details of the mock congressional hearing and discuss some of our reflections about the simulation. Our students have responded well to the inclusion of this simulation and we have found it very effective in achieving the learning outcomes for the students. We argue that this simulation could be easily replicated in various policy courses on a variety of topics.