An Experiential Pedagogy
for Sustainability Ethics
Abstract:

This project is developing and testing a new approach to teaching engineering
and science students that leverages their interest in experiment and
experience. Unlike a traditional liberal arts pedagogy involving reading about
ethics, discussing the readings, and writing new analyses, this pedagogy uses
games to position students in a series of potentially adversarial relationships that
force them to confront some of the salient problems of sustainability, including
environmental externalities, the Tragedy of the Commons, weak vs. strong
sustainability and intra-generational equity. Recent tests allow students at
different universities to play the games simultaneously using information
communication technologies (ICT). In each game, students must ask themselves
the questions related to moral cognition , "What are my obligations to my fellow
students?” and moral conation, “What am I willing to risk in my own sense of
well-being to meet these obligations?" We hypothesize that this approach will
result in students that are actively engaged in learning exercises, and result in an
improved ability to identify ethical problems, pose potential solutions, and
participate in group deliberations with regard to moral problems.

Students are encouraged to communicate
face to face with their classmates during
class, as well as via information
communication technologies (ICT) outside
of class and with students located at other
universities using (e.g., Twitter,
ethicsCORE).

• Provide background for
sustainability issues
• Introduce related theory
and general ethical codes
of conduct

• Assigned readings
• PowerPoint lecture
• Educational videos

Active
Experimentation

Concrete
Experience

• Learn how the game works • Directly experience ethical
decision making
• Determine effective
strategies
• Sharpen deliberation skills
• Identify desired outcomes • Practice discourse ethics
• Experiment with game
calculator
• Navigate non-cooperative
situations
• Discuss possible outcomes
of various strategies and
• Role playing Negotiating &
thought experiments
deliberating
• Experiment with online
• Opportunities for
collaboration tools
leadership and teamwork

• Graded writing assignments
• Students apply theory by
such as essays, wikis,
publically hypothesizing
tweets, and discussion
about expected behavior
board entries

• Students develop
interpretations and
Results:
conceptualizations of
sustainability problems

Outcomes

The students know in advance that their
performance during the game will result in
a grade. The games are designed so that
students must confront the moral dilemma
of advancing their own grade at the expense
of others

Assessments

Activities

Objectives

Abstract
Conceptualization

from Hannah ST, Avolio BJ, May DR. 2011. Moral maturation and moral conation: A capacity approach to explaining moral thought and action. Academy of
Management Review. 36(4):663-685

• Game strategy
• Some students emerge as
group leaders at this stage

• Individual and average
grades
• Communication record
• Observation of game-play
interactions
• Sharing of game points

Reflective
Observation
• Develop realizations of
individual moral fiber
• Confront discrepancies
between what they say
they would do and what
they actually did
• Compare hypothesis to
results
• Relate to real-world
collective action problems
• Debate the actions of other
students
• Classroom discussions
• Reflective writing
assignments
• Graded reflection essays on
their experience and/or how
they might redesign system
for more cooperation

• Relationships and trust
• Group tacit knowledge
between students
• Students alter their
perceptions and
• Heightened emotions and
interpretations of theory
memories
and conceptualizations
• Teamwork skills
• Improve ability to improvise • Student increase awareness
of the perspectives held by
• A sense of accountability to
others
others

Classroom experiences are consistently characterized by surprising, emergent behavior and high quality discussions. Issues concerning leadership,
transparency, risk and trust dominate discussion.

Twitter Participation

Participating students reveal deep parallels between their game-play experiences and
real-world problems, such as climate change and other environmental issues.

100

90

MMU
ASU
RIT

Game modules have been tested at a number of Universities including Rochester Institute
of Technology, Purdue University, Dartmouth and Arizona State. A recent game
experiment allowed students at ASU, RIT and Mountains of the Moon University
(located in Uganda) to simultaneously play an externalities game.
Plotting the participation of students on Twitter during game-play reveals a power
law relationship; most of the contributions to the group are made by just a few extremely
active individuals. These students provide a critically important role as moral leaders
That set expectations for other students.

Number of Tweets

80

70

60

50

40

30

20

y = 164.14x-1.299
R² = 0.8677

10

0

Students