"The Internet became the backdrop for student learning about the environment and the ethical obligations that people have with respect to it."
Students are led through a set of web pages designed to thematically address various topics in environmental ethics and challenge their skills of ethical reasoning. Topics and issues include: the ethics of conservation and preservation; pollution and the obligation to manage it; science, ethics and global warming; economic development and environmental impact; etc. Guided Inquiries are interactive, web-based explorations, exercises and assignments that provide their users with a path or thread on the Internet where the path sometimes has signposts, although sometimes it does not. In either instance, students build awareness and develop critical thinking skills about environmental problems as they weave their way through the interactive landscape of a Guided Inquiry. Students are asked to provide a working definition of environmental ethics and to seek clarity about topics and issues in environmental ethics after making visits to web sites that demonstrate the numerous concerns people have about the envionment. They are then asked to make an ethical judgment about a current case example and argue why they make the sort of judgment that they do.
