PBSC to host ethics competition for high schoolers
The Palm Beach State College Center for Applied Ethics will host the sixth annual Regional High School Ethics Bowl in partnership with The School District of Palm Beach County Jan. 28 at the Center for Bachelor’s Programs on the College’s Lake Worth campus.
The event will be held from 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. with preliminary, semi-final and final judging rounds. Fourteen teams of students from eight different high schools will participate.
This year’s participating schools are: Atlantic High School, Doral Academy Charter School from Miami-Dade County, Forest Hill High School, Oxbridge Academy, Palm Beach Lakes High School, Park Vista High School, Santaluces High School and Spanish River High School.
The ethics bowl is a collaborative, yet competitive experience for students to increase their understanding of current, complex social issues. The bowl enhances students’ sense of ethical commitment by demonstrating the importance of applying values to decision making. It promotes independent, critical thinking skills and creates respect for the positions of others.
Each team, comprised of three to seven students, has coaches who have worked with the students on actual bowl cases to prepare them for the event. Case topics include issues such as genetic testing and embryo selection, nonprofit donations, moral obligations in an emergency situation, journalistic responsibility in revealing a scandal, and obligation to report criminal history on job applications.
Community and business leaders, local government officials and school district personnel serve as judges and moderators. The top-ranked team receives an invitation to compete in the fifth annual National High School Ethics Bowl, April 7-9 at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill in partnership with the Parr Center for Ethics.
Committed leaders from PBSC, the Center for Applied Ethics and the School District of Palm Beach County developed the first-ever Palm Beach County Ethics Bowl in 2012 with grant support from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Since then, the event has been held on an annual basis.
