Intended for use at the beginning of the year in any science classroom. The teachers who developed this lesson teach physics and earth science and have described incidents that have occurred in their courses. Teachers of other disciplines can easily modify the cases so that they will be more familiar to their own students. Students working in cooperative learning groups respond to cases involving ethical choices by students and teachers in science classrooms. The teacher directs a classroom discussion of the conclusions reached by the groups.
Students create and submit additional cases and questions for use throughout the school year.
The same format can be used to raise questions about other real life ethical issues encountered by science students and teachers. The social and academic pressures experienced by science students and teachers can sometimes induce them to engage in questionable behavior. Such pressures are frequently the result of conflicts between the performance expectations and the ethical expectations placed on the individuals by the school, the community and society. The activities in this lesson provide an opportunity to examine and discuss these types of conflicts. The students will benefit from being given the chance to consider their own actions prior to being confronted with similar ethical choices.