Exploring Bioethics - NIH Office of Science Education - National ...

Teaching StrategiesYou may want to ask students to reflect in writing about whether theirunderstanding has deepened and, if so, how. This written reflection couldalso be incorporated into the final assessment.1Final AssessmentFor homework, have each student write a policy recommendation to thestate public health department. This can also be in the form of a speechor a newspaper letter to the editor. Students should take a position onpermitting religious and philosophical objections to the currently recommendedvaccinations. Within the recommendations, students should clearlyarticulate information relevant to their decisions (including communityimmunity), as well as an ethical justification relating their positions to theconcepts of respect for individual choices, harms and benefits, fairness, andresponsibilities to the greater community.Extensions (Optional)1. Generate or research additional examples of vaccine policies to place alongthe continuum.2. Explore the concept of responsibility more deeply with students.See Teacher Support MaterialsThe Responsibility Prompts and Scenarios, available online athttp://science.education.nih.gov/supplements/bioethics/teacher,may be helpful to you here.3. At the end of Activity 7, you can deepen and extend the discussion byasking students more questions:• Should vaccinations ever be mandatory, with no exceptions? If so,does this require the state to provide them for free? If the state isproviding vaccines, the taxpayers are ultimately paying for them.• What if people are willing to be vaccinated but can’t for any numberof reasons (cost, language barriers, limited access to health care, notreceiving information about vaccination)? Should the state give themthe vaccine?• Who should be responsible for the medical care of individuals who getsick because they chose not to be vaccinated?• Which is more important: ensuring that children avoid the harm ofillness or respecting parents’ authority to not vaccinate their children?• What kinds of strategies are acceptable for enforcing vaccinationmandates?• Could a mandatory vaccination policy backfire, stoke publicresentment, and cause an increased number of vaccination refusals?Module 2 2-31See theIntroductionRefer to Table 1, AssessingStudent Justifications,pages 10–11 of the Introduction,for help evaluating the FinalAssessment assignment.NoteYou can also ask students to sharetheir policy recommendations withone another or with the class.23456