Institute of Membrane & Systems Biology
FACULTY OF BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
Ethics in Schools
Enhancing student employability through ethics-themed schools
outreach activities and open educational resources
Dr Dave Lewis
d.i.lewis@leeds.ac.uk
Ethics, employability & National curriculum
• Ethics in the GCSE/GCE curriculum – “How Science works”
• Employers and employability skills
• Taught & extracurricular engagement activities

“Science and Society” final year research projects

Undergraduate internships
“Science & Society” projects
• Interactive, curriculum enhancing teaching session
Animal Experiments: Cruel and Unnecessary?
 Playing God: Use and abuse of human genetic information
 Olympics special: performance enhancing drugs
 Creating super humans: Curing disease or enhancing
performance?
 Other non-ethics topics

Animal experiments: Cruel or necessary
Playing God
Preimplantation genetic
diagnosis (PGD)
• Who thinks that this method is good?
• Would you choose to prevent a disability in
your child?
• Would you choose to abort your child because
it was disabled?
Ethical Sportsman
Healthy hearts
“Science & Society” projects
• Interactive, curriculum enhancing teaching session
• Primary or secondary
• Carousel and/or National Science Week
• Focus groups & evaluation
• Assessment & academic equivalence
• Guidance
Student reflections pre-session
“Will undoubtedly have challenges…… KS4 pupils can be
disruptive and unenthusiastic when faced with a ‘science
lecture’…… many interesting and easily relatable aspects to
engage…… interactive as possible……. level of detail required to
make my presentation educational without overpowering the
pupils........ Effective time management and a thorough plan.
Students reflections afterwards
Feedback: Colleagues & external examiners
Colleagues
“seriously doubt that an educational development or science and society could
provide the same intellectual stresses and challenges as a lab based project”
“should treat these alternative project topics with a great deal of caution,
irrespective of whether the students "want" this sort of thing”
“having marked Education/Science and Society projects in the last 2 years they
do have the same potential for intellectual input/analysis as lab based projects”
External Examiners
“A truly exceptional project, a delight to read”
Feedback: Schools
“Love to host again next year, because of the great impression this year's cohort
made”
Extra-curricular engagement: Internships
• Educational research or curriculum development
• Public engagement
 Faculty public engagement database
 Sixth Form conference
 Effectiveness of Faculty WP activities

Ethics in schools
o Website vs. Open Educational Resources
o Biomedical topics
o Wiki
o Re-purposing Science and Society projects
“Ethics in Schools” OER
Internships: Student reflections
Projects, internships & OERs
• Student
 Curricular & extracurricular opportunities for public
engagement
 Academically equivalent
 Employability skills
• Links with local / other schools
• Promoting science
• Excellent feedback
• High demand
Projects, internships & OERs
Questions to think about:
• Practicalities, barriers and benefits
• Academic standards and equivalence to other Final Year
research projects
• Transferability or otherwise to other disciplines or
Institutions
• Impact compared to other means of engaging young people
• Suggestions for development/expansion
Further details. Email D.i.lewis@leeds.ac.uk