Lesson plan Grade 12 Social Studies & Civics
Remove or Repair Wrenfold Dam? A Grade 12 Public Hearing Lesson
A grade 12 civics lesson staging a formal public hearing on whether to remove or repair the aging Wrenfold Dam, with stakeholder testimony and a commission vote.
Objectives
- Students will present evidence-based testimony from an assigned stakeholder perspective during a simulated public hearing.
- Students will evaluate the dam decision in terms of intended outcomes and unintended consequences for at least three groups.
- Students will explain how formal hearing procedures shape which arguments decision-makers actually hear.
Vocabulary
Key words: decommissioning, stakeholder, public comment, sediment, fish passage
Teacher overview
Thousands of small, aging dams across the country face the same choice, which is whether to pay for major repairs or to take the structure out entirely. This lesson stages that decision for the fictional Wrenfold Dam, a ninety-year-old structure on the invented Sperrin River, through a formal public hearing before a student "river commission." The teaching note that matters most is to hold students to the hearing procedure strictly, because the point of the lesson is that deliberative rules, including speaking order, time limits, and required responses to questions, change how a community argues. The stakeholder cards are written so that the evidence complicates either starting position, since each card carries a legitimate interest alongside a real cost.
Procedure
Session 1
Hook (10 min): Project two photographs (or describe them): a reservoir with docks and swimmers, and a free-flowing river with anglers. Ask students which scene is the "before" picture. Take a quick thumbs poll on the prompt "Old dams should generally come out." Record the tally on the board to revisit in the debrief.
Background briefing (15 min): Present the scenario. The fictional town of Wrenfold owns a ninety-year-old dam on the Sperrin River. In our scenario, a state inspection has rated the dam deficient, repairs are estimated at $14 million, and full removal is estimated at $9 million. The dam's small powerhouse sells electricity that covers part of the town's budget, the reservoir supports a summer recreation economy, and the dam blocks fish from reaching upstream spawning habitat. Sediment trapped behind the dam complicates removal, because it must be managed rather than simply released downstream. Explain how a public hearing runs: sworn-in witnesses, timed testimony, commissioner questions, and a final vote on the record.
Stakeholder team preparation (20 min): Divide the class into six teams and distribute briefing cards: the town council's finance office, the reservoir homeowners' association, a downstream anglers' alliance, the regional electric cooperative, a taxpayers' league, and the state fish and wildlife agency. Each team drafts two minutes of testimony containing one factual claim from its card, one stated interest, and one direct request to the commission. Select three students as commissioners and one as hearing clerk; commissioners prepare one question for each witness instead of testimony.
Session 2
Hearing setup (5 min): Arrange the room with a commission table facing a witness chair. The clerk reads the hearing notice aloud and states the question before the commission: repair the dam or remove it.
Testimony rounds (20 min): Each team's witness delivers timed testimony. The clerk enforces the two-minute limit. Remind students that testimony adapted into the witness's own words is more persuasive than testimony read in a monotone from the card.
Commissioner questions and rebuttal (10 min): Commissioners ask their prepared questions. Each team then gets thirty seconds to rebut one claim made by another witness, which forces teams to listen during testimony rather than simply wait to speak.
Deliberation and vote (5 min): Commissioners deliberate aloud in front of the class, name the two considerations that weighed most heavily, and vote on the record. A split vote is acceptable and realistic.
Debrief and exit ticket (5 min): Repeat the thumbs poll from the hook and compare tallies. For the exit ticket, each student writes one intended outcome of the commission's decision and one unintended consequence a group in the room might experience. Collect these to check whether students can distinguish the two categories; reteach the distinction next class if fewer than three-quarters of tickets show it clearly.
Student Handout
These are the six stakeholder briefing cards. Print one card for each team. All figures on these cards are fictional and were written for this lesson.
Town council finance office. Claim: repair is estimated at $14 million and removal at $9 million, and the powerhouse's electricity sales bring in about $400,000 a year toward the town budget. Interest: keeping the budget balanced without a large tax increase. Cost: either choice requires borrowing, and removal ends the powerhouse revenue permanently.
Reservoir homeowners' association. Claim: about 140 homes sit along the reservoir shoreline, and their docks would be left above a narrow river channel if the dam came out. Interest: keeping the lake and the property values that depend on it. Cost: repair keeps the lake but spreads a $14 million bill across every taxpayer in town, most of whom do not live on the water.
Downstream anglers' alliance. Claim: the dam blocks migrating fish from about 30 miles of upstream spawning habitat on the Sperrin River and its tributaries. Interest: restoring fish runs and the fishing trade below the dam. Cost: sediment released during removal could cloud the river and cover downstream spawning gravel for one or more seasons unless it is carefully managed.
Regional electric cooperative. Claim: the Wrenfold powerhouse supplies about 2 percent of the cooperative's electricity from a local source that burns no fuel. Interest: keeping low-cost local generation. Cost: the powerhouse's turbines are as old as the dam, and keeping them running would add upgrade costs on top of the dam repair.
Taxpayers' league. Claim: removal is estimated to cost $5 million less than repair. Interest: the lowest total cost to residents over the long run. Cost: removal gives up the powerhouse revenue and part of the summer recreation economy, which over time could cost the town more than the $5 million saved.
State fish and wildlife agency. Claim: the sediment trapped behind the dam must be tested before removal, and the $9 million removal estimate assumes it is clean enough to release in stages. Interest: restoring fish passage and river habitat. Cost: if testing finds contaminated sediment, it would have to be dredged and disposed of, and the cost of removal could rise well above $9 million.
From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.
Differentiation
Support
Give teams a testimony frame with sentence starters ("Our group depends on the dam for...", "We ask the commission to...") and let the team choose its most confident speaker while other members write the rebuttal.
Extension
Ask advanced students to draft a written commission order of two paragraphs that explains the decision, responds to the strongest losing argument, and sets one condition, such as a sediment management plan or a fund for affected homeowners.
ELL supports
Pre-teach "testimony," "witness," "deliberate," and "on the record" with a short glossary and a labeled diagram of the hearing room. Allow witnesses to deliver testimony from written notes and permit the rebuttal to be submitted in writing instead of aloud.
Extensions
Invite students to research how their own state handles deficient dams, then compare the state's actual process to the classroom hearing: who inspects dams, who pays for repairs, and which agencies must sign off before a removal.