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Right versus Wrong: how environmental ethics can guide student thinking and sustain student engagement
Type of Session
Discussion Symposium
Abstract
Before making decisions or taking a course of action on an environmental problem, students ought to reflect on their relationships with and responsibilities towards the natural world. After some reflection, they may have a better grounding for where they come from in terms of values, world views, and opinions. However, students may not have a process by which to make decisions about complex environmental issues.
Four Environmental Ethical Principles provides students with guidelines for decision-making: identifying the ethical issues from a wide range of complex environmental problems, revealing conflicts or dilemmas between the principles, and making ethical decisions about the complex situations and controversies these environmental problems pose. The presenters will introduce four environmental ethics principles taught to hundreds of AP environmental science, MPH, and doctoral students for the past five years.
Participants will:
- learn what mid-level ethical principles are and how to apply them.
- observe how an example 5E lesson on the environmental justice of landfill siting can drive content and skills in an environmental science or environmental studies course.
- brainstorm how to transfer these environmental ethical principles into their courses:
- identify environmental ethics problems and issues,
- apply environmental ethics principles to determine best fit, and
- propose a sample 5E lesson demonstrating how ethics engages students to learn content and skills needed to make ethical decisions.
- share the products of their small group cooperative exercise.
The first 45 minutes will be a powerpoint presentation introducing ethics and mid-level ethical principles and sharing a sample 5E lesson that includes a range of activities: reading material, google mapping, engineering design, role playing, and presenting policy decisions for ethical integrated waste management. The remaining 45 minutes participants will break into smaller groups to participate in a cooperative exercise and share their results.