The Department of Philosophy is excited to host the third annual Saskatchewan High School Ethics Bowl. The event will take place on our Saskatoon campus on Saturday March 2nd, 2024.

The Saskatchewan Ethics Bowl is a qualifying event for the national competition in late April 2024.

1. Form a team (up to 7 students, Grades 9 to 12 + one teacher).
2. Register your team.
3. Get your complete training package.
4. Prepare your team.
5. Compete Saturday March 2nd, 2024.

An ethics bowl is a competition that promotes a high level of collaboration between students across team lines. Teams of students examine and discuss ethical issues. They imagine, compare and criticize argumentative strategies. They pose and respond to probing questions. This process results in a deeper sense of what the stakes of the discussion are and of what principles underly each point of view. What makes an ethics bowl so different from a debate is that as matches unfold students are encouraged to refine and even to amend their original positions when faced with convincing arguments. This allows students to explore difficult ideas in a collegial and collaborative atmosphere conducive to creative thinking and truth-seeking. 

Teams are formed of five to seven students. To prepare for the competition, schools receive a set of cases that focus on current affairs—social, political, economic, scientific, cultural, or beyond. Recent topics include online shopping, sexting, Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD), worker shortage and the CERB, artificial intelligence, gene editing. Students research and develop the cases in preparation for the competition. Their training also involves getting ready to listen actively to other perspectives. All teams participate in several matches, and winning teams move to the semi-finals and the final.

The ethics bowl open to all students from Grade 9 to 12. It provides a unique and exciting way for students to develop skills associated with the Saskatchewan K-12 cross-curricular core competencies (in particular: thinking, literacies, identity and interdependence, social responsibility). 

Prior to competitions, students carefully examine and research a set ethical cases based on current events (see the cases above). They rely on various media (videos, newspaper articles, encyclopedia entries, books, etc.) to construct a knowledge of these cases. To do so, they have to think critically about the ethical dilemmas that these cases pose and imagine creative solutions to them. They prepare for the regional competition in collaboration with their team leader and teammates. During matches, students have to articulate their views before a jury and an opposing team. They also have to respond to probes in a spirit of cooperation. In the second round of the same match, they have to actively listen to the opposing team's arguments, and formulate constructive probes. In an ethics bowl, the point of the argumentation isn't to successfully defend a view against attacks, but to propose the most substantial, coherent and original examination of an ethical issue. Students are judged based on their investigative and argumentative skills as well as on their collaborative skills.

Here are additional resources describing the advantages of participating in an Ethics Bowl:

Students from all high schools in Saskatchewan are encouraged to register for the event. The registration for the 2023 regional competition is free.

The Saskatchewan ethics bowl is a qualifying event for the national competition in late April 2024.

• Flyer for 2023-2024 Saskatchewan Ethics Bowl
• Case set for 2023-2024 Saskatchewan Ethics Bowl
• Ethics Bowl in Canada
• Resources and documents on the website of Ethics Bowl Canada
• Complete set of guidelines for educators and team leaders
• The ethics bowl in action: 2019 US High School Ethics Bowl final