Economics,+Ethics,+and+the+Environment

Economics, Ethics and the Environment: Preservation and its Costs
__**Authors:**__ Jane Armstrong, Peyten Dobbs, Sally Finch, and Heike McNally

1. Students will apply economic and ethical principals in order to wrestle with questions of preservation and the environment in order to create viable solutions upon which they can act. 2. Students will brainstorm, identify, research, and analyze a global environmental issue and it's local effects. 3. Students will produce an ethically and economically responsible solution for preservation/change with respect to their environmental issue on a local level. This solution will include the use of multiple resources (Politicians, Businesspeople, Lawyers, News Anchors, Corporations both large and small, Nature Preserves, Local Natural Resources, etc.) as necessary. 4. In the end, students will connect the ideas of ethics and economics to the theme of preservation across subject matters. For example, while we examine environmental preservation, one might also apply these types of lens of analysis to questions like: Why should we study Latin, which is a "dead" language? Should we bail-out companies and corporations? What about health care? etc. - on a side note: we wondered what school might be like if the entire year were comprised of short courses like this. 9 short courses a semester for the students, multiple subject areas addressed in each short course..... just food for discussion.
 * Overarching Goal:**
 * The Spokes of the Umbrella:**
 * Time frame:** We envision this unit as a 2 week short course to be taken over the summer/ during break. 15 students, 14 days, 6-7 hours a day, 4 teachers.

__Identify Pieces of the Problem:__** 1. Students identify the most pressing global and local environmental problems/ issue areas in a brainstorm: Endangered Species, Energy, Water and Natural Resources, etc. 2. Students choose a global problem to focus on locally. 3. Students research the problem and possible solutions in the library. Groups of 2-5. 4. Students examine and analyze the economic and ethical issues related to the problem and possible solutions. 5. Students connect these ideas across other problems as well through discussion. (This is the cerebral part!) __**Identify How to make those people part of the solution:**__ 6. Students devise local solutions and advocate like lobbyists for their solutions through appropriate avenues (legislators, the news, the school community, etc.) using persuasive techniques both written and verbal. - What are the incentives for the participants? - Who is your audience? - Who makes the decisions? - What are coalitions?
 * More Detailed Steps:
 * __Identify who or what must be part of the solution:__**


 * Idea: We could give the students funds either real or imaginary to decide how to allocate in this process as well.