High-school ethics bowl a first for Washington state; Seattle Times, 2/1/14

Coral Garnick, Seattle Times; High-school ethics bowl a first for Washington state:

"In the first Washington State High School Ethics Bowl, 100 students spent their Saturday discussing topics from the legalization of marijuana to forgiving political sex scandals to supporting research on genetically engineered meat...

“In the age of the Internet, we are really exposed to the media, current events and political scandal,” Thongmee said. “I think high-schoolers these days just care more about ethical issues and want to talk about them.”

With Saturday’s event, Washington joins a growing list of states holding high-school ethics bowls. Last year, the first National High School Ethics Bowl was organized by the Parr Center for Ethics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The bowls encourage high-school students to think about ethical issues, promote critical thinking and show young people there are many ways to see the world, said Jana Mohr Lone, event organizer and director of University of Washington’s Center for Philosophy for Children...

Ethics bowls are competitions in which students have a dialogue about and analyze a series of wide-ranging ethical dilemmas. It is not to be confused with debate team, which many high schools offer, Lone said.

“People’s first assumption is always to say, ‘Oh it is like a debate,’ ” Lone said. “But we are not assigning sides of the issue. The teams’ views and perspectives may be very similar, but they are judged on their ability to offer articulate, well-informed and reasonable arguments.”

For Hannah Kortbawi, also of the Lakeside team, the Ethics Bowl was an opportunity to think critically and discuss topics that came up in her bioethics class last semester. When her teacher told her she should join the club and compete, she didn’t hesitate.

“Ethics are so hard to talk about, but that is what makes it so fun,” Kortbawi, 18, said. “It makes me feel like a better person for thinking about it.”"