Faculty Workshops

 

Student Curricular Activities

 

Summer Workshop

 

Curriculum Development

BEIA has worked actively since the fall of 2008 with faculty at The Key School in Annapolis, MD (www.keyschool.org). The educational leadership of the school among independent schools contributed to its role as a collaborative “laboratory” for BEIA’s approach to the ethical issues of biotechnology. The outline below provides a sense of the nature and extent of the partnership forged over the past year.

 

Faculty Workshops

 

GATTACA

The faculty and BEIA board members viewed this 1997 science fiction classic that is featured in BEIA’s thirteen-module curriculum. A viewer’s guide for the film was developed by Karl Haigler, BEIA’s Executive Director, as preparation for the seminar at the school. As a result of this seminar on the ethical issues of genetic engineering raised by the film and related readings (The Case Against Perfection by Michael Sandel), the partnership committed itself to a series of activities, including the use of BEIA curricular materials and its “sober second thought” approach to biotechnology.

 

Student Curricular Activities:

 

The Genesis Module

Key School’s Global Environmental Science class, under the tutelage of Brian Michaels, used the BEIA module on Genesis to discuss the role of technology and its impact on the planet. Using the first three chapters of Genesis and related readings from Hans Jonas’ work on bioengineering, students consider the ways in which mankind’s thinking about the status of nature—as sacred, as material, or as malleable—affects our actions.

 

Genetically-Modified Foods

In a year-long focus on food across all grade levels, Key School faculty in the Middle and Upper Schools planned an initiative that included BEIA’s ethical emphasis on the potential “unintended consequences” of genetic modification of food. Students were divided into two-person teams and provided background research for assuming one of eight stakeholder roles for a debate on a mythical bill banning the production of genetically-modified corn in Maryland.
Teachers in Middle and Upper School science and humanities courses provided conceptual guidance and background for the debate in their classes, a debate which ultimately included almost three hundred students. The dedicated one and a half hour session had students representing Maryland legislators, federal regulators, genetic scientists, organic farmers, environmental activists and corn grower associations. At the end of the debate, the students stepped outside their particular roles and voted for or against the bill. The majority of students voted against the ban to prohibit the production of genetically-modified corn.

 

Summer Workshop

 

June, 2010

Brian Michaels and Karl Haigler will lead a bioethics seminar for teachers, based on the experience of the BEIA-Key School partnership over the past year. Biological research and its applications, coupled with technological advances, are opening new choices and new dilemmas for our society. The ethical questions surrounding such issues as cloning, designer babies and brain chip technology have no clear-cut, simple answers. The day-long workshop will cover the following topics:

Using science fiction films to introduce the ethical issues involved in biotechnology

Prompting discussion and debate through selected films and related short readings

Using classics in Western literature to understand the nature of the modern scientific project (Participants will examine excerpts from Prometheus Bound, Bacon’s New Atlantis, and Aristotle’s De Anima and discuss how these readings can be used with students.)

Developing ethical thinking skills through selected case studies that help students relate their learning in science classes to real life issues

For more information about the Key School summer institute, June 17-18, 2010, see www.keyschool.org,  contact Brian Michaels at bmichaels@keyschool.org or Karl Haigler at karlh@bioethics-in-action.org.

 

Curriculum Development

 

BEIA’s approach to the ethical issues of biotechnology is framed by the consideration of timeless themes of the human condition in conjunction with topical issues raised by biotechnological innovation. The topics/sources below are supported by a series of questions to facilitate discussions in educational or community settings.

 

Introduction: What is Bioethics?

 

Module 1: The Promethean Project and Human Nature
Original Source: Prometheus Bound by Aeschylus           
Secondary Authors: Lezsek Kolakowski, Francis Bacon

 

Module 2: Brave New Worlds and Controlling Destinies
Original Source: The Tempest by William Shakespeare
Secondary Authors: Glenn McGee, Michael Sandel

 

Module 3: Miraculous Science and the “Relief of Man’s Estate”
Original Source: New Atlantis by Francis Bacon
Secondary Authors: Bernard Rollin, Philip Kitcher

 

Module 4: To Clone or Not To Clone—Legally Speaking
Original Source: The Island (Film, 2005)
Secondary Authors: Gina Kolata, Kerry Macintosh, Richard Dawkins

 

Module 5: The Soul, the Mind and Modern Pharmacology
Original Source: De Anima by Aristotle
Secondary Authors: George Anastaplo, Francis Fukayama

 

Module 6: The Blessings and Curse of Faustian Creativity
Original Source: Faust by J.W. Goethe
Secondary Authors: Steven Pinker, Hans Jonas, Leszek Kolakowski

 

Module 7: Designer Babies, Space, and the Stature of Man

 

Module 8: Controlling Fate and Unintended Consequences

 

Module 9: Patenting Human Beings: a Constitutional Right?

 

Module 10: Cybernetics and Cyborgs

 

Module 11: Justifying Risks and Potential Harm in Regulatory Oversight

 

Module 12: Power, Knowledge, and Transgression

For additional resources, facilitator questions, and more detail of other modules in the BEIA Curriculum, contact Karl Haigler at 336-940-2600 or karlh@bioethics-in-action.org.