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BC Ethics Bowl

BC regional winners Sands Secondary take on Princess Margaret in the semi-finals.

2022-2023 Ethics Bowl Season

The 2022-2023 Ethics Bowl season is open! This year brings back the BC Regional Ethics Bowl in February 2023, and a friendly Ethics Bowl on climate change hosted by the Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue in November 2022. There will also be professional development opportunities related to the Ethics Bowl available, at the 2022 BCSSTA Professional Development Conference.

Update: The 2022-2023 Ethics Bowl Canada Regional Cases are now out! Click here for the case set.

Ethics of Climate Change Adaptation: November 26, 2022

We teamed up with the Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue to bring you an exciting Ethics Bowl opportunity! Join us on Saturday, November 26, 2022 for a friendly Ethics Bowl competition, focused on the ethics of climate change.

There are limited spots available at this event, so register now! The registration fee is $220 for a team (including lunch) and fee waivers are available for those who need financial assistance. Please contact Cem Erkli (sfubowl@sfu.ca) to register or obtain more information.

5th BC Regional Ethics Bowl: February 25, 2023

This year's bowl will one take place at SFU's Burnaby Campus, on Saturday, February 25, 2023. The winning team will proceed to the National Ethics Bowl competition at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The registration fee for the BC Ethics Bowl is $250 per team (including lunch). Fee waivers are available for those who need financial assistance.

To get involved or to obtain more information, please contact Cem Erkli (sfubowl@sfu.ca). You can access the registration form here.

Details and information

We have prepared a video introduction to the Ethics Bowl. It will introduce you to the guiding principles behind the Ethics Bowl, how it is organized, and how the competitions are scored. It is just an outline of what you'll need to know, but it's a good starting point.

Most of the information relevant to the BC Ethics Bowl will be found on the website of the national organization, the Ethics Bowl Canada. The following resources will be particularly relevant:

Despite all the verbal descriptions available in the above documents, there's nothing quite like seeing the Ethics Bowl in action to understand how it works. To get a good feel for it, check out the following videos:

Results of previous BC Regional Ethics Bowls

We have been organizing the Regional Ethics Bowl since 2017! Check out the past event reports here:

Why participate in an Ethics Bowl?

The Ethics Bowl is particularly well-suited to the development of the core competencies emphasized in the new BC curriculum. For more more details, see the short article "Developing Core Competencies with the Ethics Bowl: Perspectives from BC" by Nic Fillion. We have also prepared a poster describing the way in which the Ethics Bowl fosters the development of the core competencies as they are articulated in the new curriculum. Check it out!

Here are additional resources describing the advantages of participating in an Ethics Bowl:

Resource for regional organizers

As we are seeking to bring the Ethics Bowl to many more communities, we have prepared a short Guide for regional organizers. If you are a teacher organizing a team for your school, you don't need this information. The information in the previous section will be more relevant.

The BC Ethics Bowl

An Ethics Bowl is both a collaborative and competitive team event, in which grade 9-12 students study, imagine, criticize, and compare stances and argumentative strategies, within an educationally-enhanced debate structure. The aim of the activity is that participating students develop and demonstrate their ability to critically engage with each other about current ethical issues—social, political, economic, scientific, cultural, and beyond. As opposed to traditional debate structures, in which reactionary opposition to each other and rhetorical flurries are often rewarded, the Ethics Bowl rewards constructive attitudes, including critical listening and the ability to envision other points of views. Instead of being rewarded for digging their heels in as the argumentation progresses, debaters may amend their initial positions when faced with convincing arguments. Students have opportunities to pose and respond to probing questions from judges with expertise in critical and ethical reasoning, resulting in a deepening awareness of the stakes and principles that animate the discussion.

La Coupe Éthique de la C.-B.

La Coupe Éthique est un événement par équipe qui est à la fois collaboratif et compétitif, au sein duquel des étudiants de 9-12ième année étudient, imaginent, critiquent, et comparent des hypothèses et stratégie argumentatives, dans le cadre d’un débat structuré à des fins éducatives. Le but est que les étudiants développent et démontrent leur aptitude à interagir en discutant des enjeux éthiques actuels, qu’ils soient à portée sociale, politique, scientifique, culturelle, etc. Alors que les débats traditionnels récompensent souvent l’opposition réactionnaire et les envols rhétoriques, la Coupe Éthique récompense les attitudes constructives, telle que l’écoute critique et la capacité à voir les choses d’autres points de vue. Au lieu d’être encouragé l’entêtement à défendre une thèse, les débatteurs peuvent amender leur position lorsqu’un argument convaincant est présenté. Les étudiants ont aussi l’opportunité de poser des questions et de répondre à celles de juges ayant une expertise en raisonnement critique et éthique, le tout menant à une compréhension approfondie des enjeux et principes animant la discussion.

 

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