Using “ethics labs” to set a framework for ethical discussion in an undergraduate science course

Abstract

Teaching ethics across the curriculum is a strategy adopted by many universities. One of the fundamental aims of teaching ethics across the curriculum is to get students to see ethics as truly relevant to the subjects they are studying. Ideally, students will come to see that ethics is a thread woven deeply in the fabric of all knowledge and practice. The standard approach, in which students are required to take a separate ethics course, is not especially well suited to this task, but incorporating ethics into science courses presents significant challenges and is likely to meet with resistance, if only because professors in the sciences are often untrained in the teaching of ethics. In an effort to raise the standard of science education as well as comply with a university‐wide curricular mandate, we as a team developed the concept of an “ethics lab.” We discuss the design of the exercises done during laboratory sections, the training of the graduate students who run the exercises, and the iterations of the exercises over time. We report unanticipated rapid positive outcomes of an attempt to integrate ethics education into a sophomore/junior level science course, Introduction to Genetics.

Of responsible research—Exploring the science‐society dialogue in undergraduate training within the life sciences

“…The incorporation of this kind of thinking within science courses has been explored in the context of laboratory classes (as in Refs. ), with discussions on ethical and societal implications associated with specific practical procedures, and the related knowledge (and knowledge production), being brought into focus as a complement. Designing a curricular unit specifically dedicated to this dialogue or focusing on the ethical dimension of some subject matters is a different example; it has been practiced together with active learning approaches (as in Refs.…”

Innovation in the Biochemistry/Molecular biology laboratory

“…Other publications, including books and websites reviewed in this journal and elsewhere focus heavily on teaching ethics as a philosophical issue to be presented to students in a didactic setting and typically as a separate course. However, teaching of ethics as a topic separate from the scientific and laboratory setting does not have the same impact on student understanding, appreciation, and application of ethics in their research experiences . Compartmentalization of ethics, as noted by Smith et al .…”

“…BAMBEd has recently published laboratory activities that contain ethics components , some of these in the context of personalized medicine or biotechnology . Other publications, including books and websites reviewed in this journal and elsewhere focus heavily on teaching ethics as a philosophical issue to be presented to students in a didactic setting and typically as a separate course.…”

“…Compartmentalization of ethics, as noted by Smith et al . can lead students to think of ethics separately from their research, whereas inclusion of ethics in the laboratory setting encourages students to see that their laboratory work has an ethical component. Arkwright‐Keeler and Stapleton have collated many resources to assist faculty in designing modules or stand‐alone courses .…”

Emergency contraception and RU-486 (mifepristone): do bioethical discussions improve learning and retention?

“…Unfortunately, despite repeated calls for the integration of bioethics into the biology curriculum, many instructors remain reluctant to include such topics in their courses. The reasons for this reluctance are many and varied and may include the following: lack of a clear conceptual framework for bioethical discussion (18), unfamiliarity or discomfort with teaching ethical issues (13,24), traditional lack of concentration on the historical and social aspects of science (15,25), the interdisciplinary nature of important ethical issues (13), and/or the belief that breadth of content coverage is more important than depth. Thus, many instructors present biological knowledge as a collection of facts and terminology, an approach that portrays biology as an unchanging discipline founded on hard data, which may not obviously relate to social issues.…”