Cincinnati, Ohio, March 8, 2016 – Several Saint Ursula Academy students participated in and won the first ever High School Ethics Bowl Competition held at the University of Findlay over the weekend.
Ethics Bowl challenges students to engage in respectful dialogue on modern ethical issues. Teams compete to present both sides of ethical dilemmas with the team who presents the most influential perspective advancing to the National Competition. In March, the Saint Ursula Team will head to Chicago to compete in the Regional Finals.
Sam Shriver, a reporter for Your News Now in Findlay, Ohio, posted the following story following the competition.
Ethics Bowl Challenges Students at University of Findlay
While fans of pro football are getting ready for the Super Bowl on Sunday, today (February 6, 2016) some high school students were participating in the first ever Ethics Bowl at the University of Findlay campus.
In this competition, there were no tackles, touchdowns or field goals.
This competition requires students to weigh in on different scenarios where there’s some ethical dilemma they have to solve.
The Ethics Bowl featured teams from Findlay, Riverdale, Coldwater and St. Ursula Academy.
Junior Caroline Feldkamp of Anderson Township is on the St. Ursula Academy team.
“I’ve gained I think a lot of perspective about life and that there’s multiple sides to certain situations that I really haven’t thought about before because a lot of cases when we first started discussing and debating them I was on one side but then I started to see the other as well as we progressed in our study of these cases.“ said Feldkamp.
Professor of Philosophy and organizer of the Ethics Bowl, Pat Stolick says...“They look at these cases from different angles, different perspectives and competition actually requires them to present not only what they take to be the central moral aspects of the case but they have to present different sides of the case. They have to explicitly present their opponents or people who would disagree with them.“
The winning team will advance to the regionals.
If the team does well they could end up at the nationals at the University of North Carolina on April 15 and 16, 2016.
So what does a typical ethics bowl case look like?
“We just had a case about whether you could select a child genetically for deafness and we had a couple who were deaf and wanted to have a deaf child and so you would never think anybody would choose a child to be deaf and yet we actually had teams arguing that parents should have the right to select a child for deafness and that you really have to summon an argument to say that you’re better or worse being deaf or not deaf “, said Stolick.
Feldkamp found the experience useful, not so much for her chosen field of study, but ”I think this will really help me in life to have a more open mind and to just look at all of the aspects of a situation before coming to a final decision.“
St. Ursula Academy is a Catholic, college-preparatory, secondary school for young women known for academic excellence and rich tradition. St. Ursula welcomes students from more than 70 grade schools in the Greater Cincinnati area. In 2002 the Academy was recognized by the U.S. Department of Education as a Blue Ribbon School. The campus, located at 1339 E. McMillan Street in East Walnut Hills has been the home of St. Ursula Academy and Convent since 1910. The Class of 2015 earned college scholarships totaling more than $19-million.
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