Our superpower is ethical dilemmas, what’s yours? As teachers of middle school students, we discovered that embedding a real-life problem into our unit of work gave students a way to connect to their learning. Our students always surprised us with their interest in discussing dilemmas. For example, our grade 7’s were tasked to explore the concept of how “Human and Robot interactions will shape our view of being human.” They researched the idea of robot rights and after looking at Asimov’s Robot rules, designed their own bill of rights for robots. What intrigued us was the level of critical and creative thinking and empathy that resulted from these collaborative discussions all based around the ethical dilemma.

We use the Harbord & Khan Ethical Model^ⓒ to drive student inquiry using ethical dilemmas and the ethical equation.

Using ethical dilemmas in PBL

Wherever there is human activity, whether the depths of the oceans or the expanse of the stars, there will be ethical dilemmas. Students can relate to ethical dilemmas as we face them in all parts of our lives, at home, at school, in our relationships, and perhaps…