Students have the opportunity to read through a bioethical scenario related to biotechnology, then answer a few discussion questions related to the reading  I have students read one scenario on their own and highlight the FIVE most important ¨facts¨ of that scenario (I tell students there isn´t a wrong answer, they can highlight which ever pieces they feel are the most important from the reading- this allows different viewpoints to be demonstrated when they do the next part)  Then students get into a small group with others that read the same scenario.  They first discuss which items they each highlighted and what they thought about the article.  Next I hand out the discussion questions related to their reading passage and have the students answer the questions as a group.    For the last part of the discussion, I have students regroup so that each new group has ONE person from eaching reading passage.  Students share out a quick summary of their passage and then ask the new group if they think biotechnology should continue related to the information in the article.  If time permits, we have a whole class discussion about the ethics behind biotechnology and the different examples demonstrated in the reading passages.  

" This course does not seek to provide answers to ethical questions. Instead, the course hopes to teach students two things. First, how do you recognize ethical or moral problems in science and medicine? When something does not feel right (whether cloning, or failing to clone) ‰ŰÓ what exactly is the nature of the discomfort? What kind of tensions and conflicts exist within biomedicine? Second, how can you think productively about ethical and moral problems? What processes create them? Why do people disagree about them? How can an understanding of philosophy or history help resolve them? By the end of the course students will hopefully have sophisticated and nuanced ideas about problems in bioethics, even if they do not have comfortable answers."

Students read a scientific article about a research study done in India about genetically modified cotton.  Upon finishing the article student answer a number of literacy based questions about the article to both assess their vocabulary and understanding of the content of the article.  This is a great quick assignment to allow students to practice literacy as well as introducing them to a higher level reading material.  

Students research and construct an oral debate about a topic related to Genetically Modified Organisms.