According to a 2022 Pew Research Center survey of US parents, 94% of parents say it’s extremely or very important to them that their children grow up to be honest and ethical adults.
Ethics Case Writing Project
Description
PLATO’s online, open-access Ethics Case Library contains case studies written by middle school and high school students. The cases, about ethical dilemmas relevant to young students, can be used in classrooms and other ethics forums.
Any middle school or high school student from anywhere in the world can help build the library by submitting a case. Cases are due October 1 each year.
Accepted cases are published on PLATO’s website, with credit to the writers. Writers of accepted cases will also receive a one-year PLATO membership.
All published cases become the property of PLATO.
Guidelines for Submissions
Guidelines: Each case should focus on an ethical issue, current or perennial, relevant to middle and/or high school students. The case must consider the ethical issue from at least two viewpoints presented fully and generously, so that the complexity of the case is made clear. Each case must include 3-4 discussion questions for students analyzing the case.
Length: 300-500 words
Sample case: “Standing for the National Anthem” (also see past accepted cases in PLATO’s Ethics Case Library).
Authorship: Cases can be written by individuals or a group of students (all contributors will be credited).
Submission Limit: Students may submit up to two cases.
Deadline: Submit cases online by completing the form to the right (or below on mobile), by 5 pm PT September 30, 2025.
Writers of accepted cases will be notified in fall 2025.
Judging Criteria
All submissions are anonymously reviewed by a committee of judges according to the following criteria:
- Does the case clearly articulate the ethical issue and its ethical complications?
- Does the case explicitly consider at least two viewpoints in a balanced way?
- Is the case well-written and clearly organized?
- Is the case on a topic not already covered in PLATO’s Ethics Case Library?
- Is the case the student’s original work?
The PLATO Ethics Case Writing Project is designed to encourage students to engage in ethical reasoning, critical thinking, and creative writing. This is, of course, an ethics project, and to uphold its integrity all submissions must be the student’s original work and must not be generated by artificial intelligence (AI) tools, including ChatGPT, Claude, Google Gemini, Copilot, or other text-based AI systems.
We encourage students to incorporate feedback received from teachers, peers, and mentors. However, the work submitted must reflect the student’s own critical thinking and writing ability.
When submitting an ethics case, students must attest that they have not used AI in their work. Submissions found to have been AI-assisted will be disqualified.
Debi Talukdar, PLATO’s Program Director, has been facilitating K-12 philosophy classes since 2014 and was the Philosopher-in-Residence at Thurgood Marshall Elementary School, Seattle, from 2018-2021. She also mentors educators and facilitates professional development workshops, and was previously Program Director at the University of Washington Center for Philosophy for Children before it merged with PLATO in 2022. Debi is an adjunct lecturer for online courses at the University of Washington School of Educational Studies and former ensemble member at Theater for Change UW. She currently lives in Oakland, CA.
Karen S. Emmerman, PLATO’s Education Director, started teaching philosophy classes at John Muir Elementary in Seattle in 2010 and has worked as their Philosopher-in-Residence since 2013. She has facilitated teacher trainings in pre-college philosophy for many years. Karen is part-time faculty in the philosophy department at the University of Washington and writes in ecofeminism, animal ethics, and philosophy for children, as well as serving as associate editor of the journal Precollege Philosophy and Public Practice.
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