Balloon Game - Ethics & ToK version starter activity.
Most DP Students will have played the Balloon Game / Shipwreck Game by the time they reach DP. I think it's a great icebreaker, and pastoral activity to play with students of all ages.
In this starter activity we 'up-cycle' it so that it has a ToK twist, we use it as a game to introduce students to the 3 main ethical schools (Virtue Ethics, Deontology and Utilitarianism).
Why introduce ethics in this way ?
Ethics are a subset of the Knowledge Framework for all Areas of Knowledge ( a welcome change from the previous version of the ToK Syllabus). ToK students don't have to know the details of ethical schools, nor be able to explain ethical thought in any detailed way. They only need to know what the ethical issues are that could pertain to any of the Areas of Knowledge. However, rather than teaching the specific ethical issues arising from each area of knowledge it makes far more sense to give students a basic grounding in the main schools of ethics so that they can apply them to the AoKs.
The Balloon Game - Ethics in ToK version.
The Ethics in ToK Balloon Game Handout
The game is pretty straight forward. I put the students into groups, and allocate a school of Ethics to each group to make their decisions.
The PDF version of the file can be downloaded here.
An interesting aside...,
The words 'ethical' and 'ethics' are often in school's Mission/Vision/Values statements. I think they're alluding to some form of virtue ethics. As a ToK teacher I want my students to develop a more precise use of language relating to knowledge. So, I always ask my students to ask "what type of ethics are we referring to ?" when they see it in the school values statements. When we think about it a school aspiring to be deontological will do things very differently to a school aspiring to be utilitarian etc. I know it's a bit pedantic, but a spot of pedantry when it comes to how we behave towards each other may not be a bad thing !
Have a great day,
Daniel,
Lisbon, November 2022.
For more on Ethics you can check out this very clear BBC Site, and there's a lot of good content on the ToK2022 site.