60–70 minutes | Applying ethical frameworks to a real decision
Scenario: The board asks whether the school or kura should phase out non-essential single-use plastic in the canteen and at events by the end of next year. Your team must recommend yes, no, or a staged alternative and justify who benefits, who carries costs, and how success will be checked.
Students annotate the evidence pack using three codes: F fact, V value judgement, and ? evidence still needed. Record an individual starting position before discussion.
Which option is likely to create the greatest overall benefit and least harm? Test short- and long-term effects, distribution of costs, and uncertainty.
What rights must be protected and what duties remain even if another option is cheaper or more popular?
What reciprocal obligations connect people, whenua, wai, other living beings, and future generations? Whose authority and local knowledge must shape the decision?
Groups rotate four roles: evidence checker, stakeholder advocate, framework tester, and recorder. Score each option from 1–5 under every lens, then add a sentence explaining the score. A number without cited evidence does not count.
| Option | Consequences | Rights/duties | Kaitiakitanga | Evidence or uncertainty |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Full phase-out | ____ | ____ | ____ | ________________ |
| Staged phase-out | ____ | ____ | ____ | ________________ |
| Improve current system | ____ | ____ | ____ | ________________ |
Dissent protocol: before choosing, each person must state the strongest reason for an option they do not prefer. The recorder must capture one unresolved trade-off.
Each group produces a one-page recommendation or two-minute oral briefing containing:
Peers respond with evidence strong, trade-off hidden, and question before action.
Write 150–200 words: Which lens most changed your starting position? Name the evidence or value that moved you, one limitation of your final recommendation, and whose voice still needs to be heard.
Assessment evidence: completed matrix, group recommendation, and individual reflection. Success depends on evidence, visible trade-offs, cultural responsibility, and a feasible review step—not on choosing a preferred answer.
Students will compare ethical lenses, use evidence to expose trade-offs, and make a feasible recommendation that accounts for affected relationships and future consequences.
Scaffold support: Provide argument frames (claim → evidence → reasoning → counter-argument) for entry-level access. Use structured controversy activities where students argue assigned positions. Offer extension tasks requiring students to analyse a real media article or policy document using the lesson's critical framework.
ELL / ESOL: Pre-teach argumentative language structures ("I argue that…", "The evidence suggests…", "However, one might counter…"). Allow oral argument as a first step before written production. Sentence frames and argument maps lower the language barrier while maintaining cognitive demand.
Inclusion: Structured debate and discussion formats benefit all learners — particularly neurodiverse students who thrive with explicit rules and clear roles. Affirm that disagreement done respectfully is a high-value academic and civic skill. Allow quiet processing time before group discussion. Offer written alternatives for students who find oral argument challenging.
Mātauranga Māori lens: Te whakaaro māramatanga — enlightened thinking — reflects a long tradition of reasoned debate in Te Ao Māori. The whare (meeting house) is a place of kōrero, where multiple perspectives are heard before decisions are made. Tikanga requires that arguments be made with integrity and respect (mana). Māori oratory (whaikōrero) is a sophisticated critical tradition — whakataukī encode compressed wisdom that often challenges surface-level thinking.
Prior knowledge: Best used within a sequence building critical thinking skills progressively. No specialist knowledge required for entry-level engagement with structured tasks.
This lesson directly teaches evidence-based ethical judgement and the verified Level 5 resource-management context through a justified plastics decision.
See the unit overview for the exact verified Ministry statements and lesson map.