Including failure case studies in civil engineering courses

Although the ideal would be to teach a special course in failure studies of constructed facilities in which appropriate lecture materials are available, an alternative is to add failure case studies to existing civil engineering courses. A method by which this can be accomplished without requiring additional expenditures of time and money, and special forensic expertise by the teacher, is to require a term paper on a review of a specific case study from a civil engineering journal. A detailed description is given on the requirements and administration of the term-paper assignment during the duration of the course.