Over 30 delegates gathered in the capital to attend the sessions on 'The rights and wrongs of teaching ethics to bioscience students'. After a welcome and introduction by our host Dr Andy Bond the following sessions took place through the day.

• Why we need to teach ethics to bioscientists, ethical influences? Dr David Cook, Whitefield Institute
• 'Ethics and Society' in the bioscience curriculum. Dr Peter Robinson, University of Central Lancashire
• Issues in Biomedical Science. Dr Andy Bond, University of Westminster.
• Social Impacts of Biology. Dr Roger Pearce, University of Newcastle
• Bioethics education:aims, evaluation, assessment and professionalism. Dr Roger Downie, University of Glasgow
• Swapshop.
• Principles of an ethics curriculum in the biosciences. Dr David Cook, Whitefield Institute
• Discussion and close led by Prof John Bryant, University of Exeter.

Why we need to teach ethics to bioscientists, ethical influences?
Dr David Cook, Director of the Whitefield Institute

David gave an entertaining and thought-provoking talk on the need to teach ethics to bioscientists. After introducing the topic he went on to show how ethical decisions/dilemmas are constantly in the news (GMOs, xenotransplantation, identity of sperm donors etc) and that the nature of biomedicine makes ethics relevant. Laws, the media and confidentially of science influence people and hence bioscience. David's quick-fire style mixed with numerous anecdotes captivated the audience.

'Ethics and Society' in the bioscience curriculum. Dr Peter Robinson, University of Central Lancashire
Dr Peter Robinson, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Central Lancashire

Peter used a general ethics course in the bioscience curriculum as the basis of his talk. After explaining that the increased interest in ethics and the requirements in the benchmarks for students to be ethically aware means that we need to train students in ethical thinking he described his experiences from Central Lancashire. Here the students are split into groups of 4, choose (or are given) a topic of interest and are asked to prepare a biased argument. Marks are given for the written essay and the contribution to the debate. Experience has shown that the students learn a lot and benefit greatly from the experience of debating a topic.

Issues in Biomedical Science
Dr Andy Bond, School of Biosciences, University of Westminster.

The second case of the day was given by Andy Bond. Andy based his talk around an ethics module at the University of Westminster. In this coursework-based module Andy explained students were encouraged to participate and gain an appreciation of current issues. Students had to construct a survey of opinions via a questionnaire they studied. One of the aims of the module was that students would move towards a position of greater understanding and tolerance of alternative viewpoints.

Social Impacts of Biology
Dr Roger Pearce, School of Biological Sciences, University of Newcastle

The final case study of the morning was given by Roger Pearce from the University of Newcastle. Roger explained how his module introduced students to main ethical principles and current areas of interest. By identifying key ethical principles and the assumptions used students are expected to produce reasoned arguments on different topics. The purpose of this is to inform students about the wider implications for biology and foster critical thinking.

Bioethics education:aims, evaluation, assessment and professionalism
Dr Roger Downie, Division of Environmental and Evolutionary Biology, University of Glasgow.

Roger started off the afternoon session with an interesting talk on the development of an assessment tool for ethics education. The talk was based around his experience from studies of students enrolled on the Zoology and Animal Biology courses at the University of Glasgow. In collaboration with Dr Henriikka Clarkeburn a Moral Development Questionnaire was developed. This consisted of a 'test of Ethical Sensitivity', a DIT (Defining Issues Test) and a section asking students to indicate their personal views with respect to a set of opposed statement. The results showed that the programme produced a measurable improvement Ethical Sensitivity but the programme was too short to show an improvement in moral reasoning/problem-solving ability.

Swapshop
The contributions to a well-received swapshop were

• Andy Bond - brought to the attention of the delegates two useful items;'A Right to Die: The Dax Cowart Case' by David Anderson, Robert Cavalier & Preston K Covey. Published by
  Routledge. ISBN 0415917530 and 'Ethics for Beginners' by by D.Robinson and C.Garratt
• Chris Wilmott - highlighted the websites produced by groups of students at the University of Leicester as an example of a useful tool for teaching ethics
• Jim Brown - emphasised the importance of recognising reason and distinguishing between good and bad. He also quoted different models which may be used to evaluate decision making
• Anabela de Assis Pinto - based at Cambridge University she introduced the Animal Welfare Information Centre at Cambridge and asked for collaborators for the 'Ethics' section of the website (http://www.animal-info.net)
• John Bryant - raised the possibility of using drama to raise and teach ethical issues. 'logging in the rainforest' and 'GMO oilseed rape in Norfolk' were the examples used to illustrate this.

Principles of an ethics curriculum in the biosciences
Dr David Cook, Director of the Whitefield Institute

David gave another entertaining talk on principles, where we get them from, what is natural? core principles. He also stressed that to teach we need to understand how we make decisions

Discussion and close
Prof John Bryant, School of Biological Sciences, University of Exeter.

John led the discussion at the end of a very useful day. He gathered the thoughts of the day under 3 main headings

• Whether ethics is essential or optional?
• How do we teach ethics?
• How do we apply ethics?

Also of possible interest;

Ethics audit tool, incorporating sustainability, download as Word or pdf document

Ethics related articles and resource list