“Everyone Else Does It!” Ethics Project
Student Handout – Page 1
1. In your computer applications class, there are several students who gather together to discuss the latest
computer games. You play a couple of the games that are discussed, so you can occasionally add to the
conversation. You would like to fit in more to their group, but you don’t have the all the games. You
can get copies of the games from one of the students who burns copies for a small price. Do you get
into the group by paying a small price for the pirated software?
2. Your busy schedule has kept you from really working on that science research paper. It is due in two
days, and you have only a rough outline of what you are going to say. You need this paper to be good,
to keep your sports and activities schedule from suffering. You need more supporting research. There is
a web site that has “ready to use” research papers. In fact, you have found one that would work for your
paper. Your science teacher is very busy with school business and doesn’t always check the reports
against online copies. Do you use the online copy to fit your schedule, or do you make room in your
schedule to write it yourself?
3. As part of a student technician team, you work with teachers and students to keep the technology running.
Because you are still a technician in-training, you can’t always fix the problem or supply the answers.
As a result, you see a different side of the teachers. Some of them can be rude and demanding when it
comes to fixing technology that they rely on for their lessons, and others can be really nice. In your
conversations with your friends at school, do you share all this “tasty gossip,” or do you hold back
when other students talk about teachers?
4. You have an opportunity for an internship at a respected business in the community. Part of your
qualifications comes from a senior project that you worked on with several other students. Through the
interview process, you discover that you are given credit for a key section of the project that really
impressed the company. In fact, another member of your senior team, with little input from you, did
that section. How do you proceed?
5. You are a valuable member of the student store staff. You handle many of the cash box transactions,
moving the daily cash between the store and the office, where it is held overnight. You remember that
you needed to have cash to reserve your spot on the senior trip today, and your wallet is empty. You
have the money at home, but forgot to pick it up this morning. You can’t ask your friends because they
don’t carry that much cash, and no one is at your house to bring it over. You know how the money is
moved around through the student store, and could “borrow” the money from the cash box until
tomorrow, and nobody would probably know. How do you proceed?
6. You have been struggling in your Economics class. The content does not come easily, so you have put in
countless hours to understand and do the assignments. There is another student who breezes through the
assignments, getting high marks for the work he turns in. You know for a fact that he has used his
college-aged cousin to do some of the assignments for him. You don’t know how many assignments
were turned in this way, but you are certain that he, in fact, did not do all the work. Your frustration
increases over the last assignment that you worked overtime on, but did poorly. Of course, this other
student scored well on the same assignment. You could drop the teacher an anonymous note about the
implied cheating on the part of this other student. It might get the teacher to slow down a little, and help
you in the long run. What do you do?
DIRECTIONS
Please go to Page 9 of the PDF above. Please read through the scenarios 1-6 and answer these 5 questions (below) for each scenario. Please turn that document in on Canvas.
5 Questions
1. What are the facts?
2. Identify and define the ethical problem.
3. What options do you see are available to resolve this dilemma?
4. How would you resolve the dilemma?
5. What consequences (if any) do you see your decision has on the others involved?
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