Trivial cocycles and invariants of homology 3-spheres

We study the relationship between trivial cocycles on the Torelli group and invariants of oriented integral homology 3-spheres. We apply this study to give a new purely algebraic construction of the Casson invariant. As a by-product we get a new 2-torsion cohomology class in the second integral cohomology of the Torelli group.