Environmental Ethics Using Hey, Little Ant

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Area: Ethics, History and Social Studies, Science
Grade Level: Middle School, Primary/Elementary School
Topics: animals, environmental ethics
Estimated Time Necessary: 1 hour
Lesson Attachment: P4C-session-10-@-SW-1.pdf

Lesson Plan

Objectives:
Respect
Who or what deserves respect? The discussion will address the duties we have to others as well as how we utilize our power and responsibility onto others?
Peer Pressure
We will be exploring the phenomenon of peer pressure. The discussion will allow for the children to consider good and bad forms of peer pressure.
Metacognition
The children will be to reflect on how we reason ethically, allow for self reflection on the ethical decision making process, discussion on the moral status of animals.

What is Environmental Ethics?

Environmental Ethics is the discipline in philosophy that studies the value of the environment and its non-human contents as well as their moral relationship to human beings.

Materials Needed: Hey, Little Ant by Hannah Hoose and Phillip Hoose

Opening Activity:

Warm-up discussion: Respect

  • Who or what do we respect?
  • Do we respect people? Animals? Insects?
  • How do we show our respect?
  • Do we respect these people, animals, objects equally or in the same way?
  • Are there things or beings we do not need to respect that deserve to be respected? Should we respect them? If so, how so?

Read the Book

After reading the book, you can take the students’ questions or supplement with the questions on the “Discussion Questions” tab in this lesson plan.

Post Reading Activity

  1. Give each student a plastic bag that contains a printed picture of an ant, spider, ladybug, and bee.  (Alternatively, other pictures of animals may be provided.)
  2. Instructions to provide to students: Each of you has a bag that contains a printed picture of an ant, spider, ladybug, and bee. You can choose whether you want to squish the insects by ripping them up or not to squish by leaving the picture intact.
  3. Extend their thoughts on the topic.
    1. In a classroom, continue the discussion with the new bugs and whether there are differences between how we treat different bugs and why. See more questions below.
    2. If this activity is for homework, give students a choice of questions and have them write down their reflections. Here are some suggested questions:
      1. Did you choose to squish the bugs? And why? Do you think you did the right thing?
      2. Did you treat all of the bugs the same? Or did you treat them differently? What are your reasons for different treatment of the bugs? Do you think your treatment of them is fair?
      3. Have you ever squished or harmed one of these bugs in the past? What did you do, and what were you thinking at that time? Do you think you will change your action in the future?
      4. Do these bugs deserve respect, and why? What does it mean to show them respect?
      5. Are there times when it is okay to kill bugs (or certain kinds of bugs)? What would be the reasons for them?
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Discussion Questions

  • How are the ant and the boy different? How are they similar?
  • Does it matter if the ant experiences pain?
  • Does it matter if the ant has a family to take care of?
  • How would you feel if you were in the ant's shoes?
  • Are there things or beings we do not respect that deserve to be respected? Should we respect them? If so, how so?
  • What do you think the boy should have done? Squish or not? Why or why not?
  • How could the boy have shown respect to the ant?
  • What is peer pressure? Was peer pressure involved? Is peer pressure always good or always bad?
  • Who was peer pressuring the boy?
  • Is the ant worth less than the boy? How is he worth less? Are the ants' feelings worth less than the boy's feelings?
  • How do you show respect to a person? To an animal? To a bug? To a tree?
  • Have you ever stepped on an insect? Did you ever stop to think of how that would affect the insect?
  • In the story, the boy has the power to squish the ant. Can you think of anything you have the power to do but shouldn't? What keeps you from doing it?
This lesson plan was created for PLATO by: Jessica Manzo, CSUB Alumni.

This work is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

If you would like to change or adapt any of PLATO's work for public use, please feel free to contact us for permission at info@plato-philosophy.org.