This is part three of a four-part series that looks at how different simulation systems are used to educate and train some of the nation’s emergency managers and first responders.
- Part one: Simulation-Based Training Provides Cost-Effectiveness, Flexibility. A virtual replica of New York City provides its Office of Emergency Management with a unique way to test its command element.
- Part two: Los Angeles launched the nation’s first Hydra system, which uses video feeds to monitor real-time decision-making during critical incident training.
Hazardous Instruction
After 9/11 Dartmouth College's Interactive Media Laboratory worked with the college's Institute for Security Technology Studies to create a project that would help first responders in terrorism response.
The college created the Ops-Plus for WMD Hazmat program to apply those technologies and educational models that were created, according to lab Director Joseph Henderson.
By working with the HAZMAT community, the developers found that many people were trained at the operations level, but additional education was needed because communities were procuring tools like radiation instruments that required specialization. Instead of requiring them to become technician-level responders, the Ops-Plus software provides simulated HAZMAT instruments, risk assessments and responses training.
Ops-Plus is part of the laboratory’s Virtual Terrorism Response Academy and provides more than 18 hours of interactive training about chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and explosive threats. “There are big scenario simulations that occur in an immersive 3-D environment, some people call it a ‘first-person shooter environment,’ and then there are other simulations in other parts of this Virtual Terrorism Response Academy that allow people to play with pieces of concepts,” Henderson said. “For example, working with simulated instruments and little games that allow them to play with the concepts before they have to put it all together in the larger scenarios.”
One simulation exercise is a report of a possible dirty bomb laboratory and the trainee must interpret instruments’ results and determine the risk to the community. An onscreen mentor guides the trainee through the simulations and asks questions like, “What do you think’s going on here?” and “Do you think we need to go in to learn more?”
“It’s one thing to have a simulated instrument, it’s one thing to have a simulated target to shoot at, and it’s another thing to have a mentor with knowledge take you through a scenario that feels reasonably realistic and you must use the simulated instruments and deal with very complex questions of risk, benefit, personal safety and team safety in the context of dealing with a potential terrorist attack,” Henderson said.
Mike Callan uses Ops-Plus in multiple ways as a part of the chemical response training he provides for the public and private sectors. The former captain of the Wallingford, Conn., Fire Department, Callan also is an onscreen mentor who provided his expertise to help develop the program. He often leaves a copy of the software with the company or first responder agency he’s training. “The ability to be able to use multiple people on one bit of software is very powerful for the fire service; it’s economical,” he said.
Callan also uses it to demonstrate certain points in his lectures because it provides consistent, well illustrated information. “If the message is repeated multiple ways at different levels, that’s how learning sticks,” he said. “That’s why it’s such a powerful tool.”
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