Brown, D. A., & Brannon, M. L. (2011, June), Integrating Ethics into Undergraduate Environmental Science and Economics Education  Paper presented at 2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Vancouver, BC. 10.18260/1-2--18227

\bibitem{asee_peer_18227}
  Brown, D. A., \& Brannon, M. L. (2011, June), \emph{Integrating Ethics into Undergraduate Environmental Science and Economics Education}
  Paper presented at 2011 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition, Vancouver, BC.
  10.18260/1-2--18227

Donald Arthur Brown and Mary Lynn Brannon.  "Integrating Ethics into Undergraduate Environmental Science and Economics Education".  2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Vancouver, BC, 2011, June.  ASEE Conferences, 2011.  https://peer.asee.org/18227 Internet.  19 Apr, 2024

\bibitem{asee_peer_18227}
  Donald Arthur Brown and Mary Lynn Brannon.
  "Integrating Ethics into Undergraduate Environmental Science and Economics Education".
  \emph{2011 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition, Vancouver, BC, 2011, June}.
  ASEE Conferences, 2011.
  https://peer.asee.org/18227 Internet.  19 Apr, 2024

@INPROCEEDINGS{asee_peer_18227
author = "Donald Arthur Brown and Mary Lynn Brannon"
title = "Integrating Ethics into Undergraduate Environmental Science and Economics Education"
booktitle = "2011 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition"
year = "2011"
month = "June"
address = "Vancouver, BC"
publisher = "ASEE Conferences"
note = {https://peer.asee.org/18227}
number = {10.18260/1-2--18227}
}

TY  - CPAPER
AB  -            Integrating Ethics into Undergraduate Environmental Science and                                  Economics EducationBased upon the premise that students with good critical thinking skills should be able to spotethical questions that often arise in environmental controversies, a program was developed at alarge research university to systematically improve critical thinking skills of undergraduatestaking environmental science and environmental economics courses. Students should have thecritical thinking skill that enables them to separate factual claims from normative and ethicalassumptions in descriptions of public policy issues. Yet environmental problems are oftendescribed in the “value-neutral” languages of sciences and economics. Other ethical issues,often hidden in scientific analyses of environmental problems, are who should have the burdenof proof and what quantity of proof should satisfy the burden of proof. Environmentalproblems, such as climate change, loss of biodiversity and forests, and degraded naturalresources, as are typically taught at the undergraduate level do not expressly integrate ethics inteaching about these issues. If environmental ethics is taught at all at the undergraduate level, itis usually not integrated into science, economics, and policy courses. The integration of ethicsinto environmental pedagogy is needed to strengthen the ability of students to identify andcritically evaluate ethical issues in policy discourses. The purpose of the program is to teachundergraduates the ability to identify ethical issues that often arise in environmental problems.These issues are rarely identified despite the fact that environmental science and economicsraises ethical questions.This paper will describe the development and assessment of a course module on teachingstudents how to identify ethical issues in environmental policymaking that are oftenhidden in science and economic descriptions of environmental problems, how the moduleis used in the teaching of environmental ethics, and the assessment plan conducted over athree year period. The assessment is composed of a pre and post test consisting of a casestudy designed to see if students could identify ethical questions embedded in aneconomic and scientific discussion of environmental problems. The pre-test isadministered prior to a lecture on ethical issues that arise in economic arguments aboutenvironmental programs, and issues related to scientific uncertainty that are typicallyencountered in environmental disputes. The post-test is administered again after thelecture to see if student’s ability to identify the ethical questions has improved orchanged. A student perception of learning survey was administered at the end of thesemester. The module, designed for a Science, Technology and Society (STS) coursewas also taught in two subsequent courses to test and assess the transferability of themodule across disciplines.The purpose of this paper is to share the lessons learned in teaching critical identificationof ethical issues embedded in environmental policymaking issues; and to shareassessment data of student performance and perceptions. Initial findings indicate that theawareness of students to ethical issues versus factual issues has improved. Individualswho teach science, technology and society courses, and ethics may be interested in thispaper.
AU  - Donald Arthur Brown
AU  - Mary Lynn Brannon
CY  - Vancouver, BC
DA  - 2011/06/26
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Integrating Ethics into Undergraduate Environmental Science and Economics Education
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/18227
DO  - 10.18260/1-2--18227
ER  -