JCU bioethics 4: Euthanasia to reduce antibiotic use
Open your materials, follow the steps, then turn in your work.
Argue an assigned side of this question: Should terminally ill patients be offered medical aid in dying in order to decrease antibiotic use?
1. Open your materials
Use the materials named in the first step below. Open lesson resources.
2. Start the work
Bring your preparation assignment. It is your evidence, and you cannot build a case in the room without it.
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- Bring your preparation assignment. It is your evidence, and you cannot build a case in the room without it.
- Sides are assigned now, not before. You may be arguing the side you disagree with.
- Open with the icebreaker: If you could instantly speak and understand any world language, what would it be, and why?
- Read the scenario together, then take five minutes with your side to pick your three strongest arguments and decide who leads.
- Argue. Every claim needs a reason, and a reason someone else could check.
- Answer the other side's strongest point directly. Restating your own point is not a rebuttal.
- Close by writing where you actually stand now, and what moved you.
Lost your place? Lost the thread? Find the side you were assigned and your three strongest arguments. If you have those, move to the rebuttal: what is the other side's best point, and what is your answer to it?
Check your work before submitting
- You can argue a position you were assigned rather than one you chose.
- You can state the strongest argument against your own side and answer it.
- You can separate what the evidence shows from what you believe about it.
3. Turn in your work
DueCheck Schoology- Hand in
- Your worksheet: the side you argued, your three strongest arguments, the opposing point you had to answer, and where you actually stand now.
How to submit and name your file
Hand in the worksheet at the end of the session.
In Schoology, open your course and the assignment for this lesson. Attach your file, select Submit, and check that it appears in the submission.
PDF upload helpYou get two school days for every day you were absent, so this deadline moves with you.
Find this lesson's Schoology assignments
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How this lesson connects
Keep using what you learned last class: Genetic data reveals information about biological relatives who never consented, so who is allowed to read your DNA is never only your own decision. Today: Should terminally ill patients be offered medical aid in dying in order to decrease antibiotic use?
Need help? Warm-up, timing, and directions▸
💡 Big idea: Should terminally ill patients be offered medical aid in dying in order to decrease use?
- 0-5 minScenario read together; sides assigned
- 5-22 minFacilitated debate, John Carroll leading
- 22-33 minRebuttals: answer the other side's strongest point, not its weakest
- 33-40 minWrite where you now stand and what moved you
- 40-80 minPLTW work for this unit, picking up where the last class left off
- • John Carroll has the first half of the block, about 40 minutes. The second half is PLTW work for this unit.
- • You do not know your side yet. That is deliberate, and it is why the prep asked you to build both.
- • A debate is not a fight to win. It is a way of finding out which argument actually survives contact with the other one.
- • Exit goal: you can state the best case against your own position, and say what you would need to change your mind.
- • A highly infectious, -resistant called Strain X is causing mass casualties. Health authorities trace it to widespread antibiotic overuse, particularly in immunocompromised and terminally ill patients on prolonged, high-dose regimens. The Global Health Council proposes that these patients, with their consent, could receive medical aid in dying, reducing antibiotic use in a high-risk group and slowing resistance to the last-resort drugs.
- • The case for: A utilitarian reading: a small, terminally ill population, with consent, against millions of lives saved.
- • The case against: Euthanasia violates the physician's oath to do no harm. Medicine exists to heal and to comfort, never to intentionally end a life.
PLTW connection and today's work
Bring your preparation assignment and use it. John Carroll runs the first 40 minutes, and sides are assigned in the room, so you argue whichever one you are handed. For the second half of the block, continue Activity 2.1.1 Chronicles of a Genetic Counselor in myPLTW, picking up where last class stopped.
Today's stopping point: The debate is the first 40 minutes. You are finished with it when you have written where you stand now and what moved you. The rest of the block is Activity 2.1.1 Chronicles of a Genetic Counselor.
PLTW activity titles identify the course connection. If your account will not open, use the posted materials for today and tell Mr. Mendoza. Do not mark an online activity complete unless you completed it.
Course connection
- John Carroll facilitates the first 40 minutes. Bring your preparation assignment; it is your evidence. The rest of the block is PLTW work for this unit.
Use the turn-in directions at the top of this page. Do not create a second submission unless your teacher asks for one.
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Lesson resources: reading, slides, and vocabulary▸
The deck carries the prior idea forward, lets you inspect an analogy, maps the rule to biology, and ends with the same evidence decision and exit ticket used on this page.
Generated from this lesson's canonical data with a red-team citation check.
Genetic data reveals information about biological relatives who never consented, so who is allowed to read your DNA is never only your own decision.
Should terminally ill patients be offered medical aid in dying in order to decrease use?
A review board sorts scientific evidence, stakeholder needs, possible benefits, possible burdens, and uncertainty before choosing a policy.
- Which statements are scientific evidence?
- Which statements express a value or priority?
- Who receives the benefit and who carries the burden?
Use science to estimate consequences, then state the value judgment and tradeoff that determine the decision.
A review-board model organizes reasoning but does not make one ethical principle automatically outweigh every other principle.
- • Evidence cards map to source-backed findings.
- • Stakeholder cards map to affected people and priorities.
- • The recommendation maps to an explicit tradeoff with a named uncertainty.
Driving question: You will be handed a side today, not asked for one. Which can you make stronger by the end of the block: for the proposal, or against the proposal?
What you already know: Genetic data reveals information about biological relatives who never consented, so who is allowed to read your DNA is never only your own decision.
New idea: Should terminally ill patients be offered medical aid in dying in order to decrease use?
Visual or model: F1. F1. A lesson illustration or teaching diagram for JCU bioethics 4: Euthanasia to reduce antibiotic use. Use it with E1-E3; it is a model or context image, not experimental or patient data. What to notice: Trace the labeled testing, treatment, or biological process and identify where evidence limits the decision.
- Observe or measure the relevant feature in today's lesson.
- Organize the observation with a stable evidence ID.
- Apply this rule: Use science to estimate consequences, then state the value judgment and tradeoff that determine the decision.
- Choose the option the evidence supports and state the limit of the conclusion.
Real biomedical example: You will be handed a side today, not asked for one. Which can you make stronger by the end of the block: for the proposal, or against the proposal?
What the evidence supports: E1-E3 and F1 support the daily take-home when the response meets the stated success criteria.
What it cannot prove: The package does not support claims beyond this lesson's or any real patient diagnosis.
Use it now: Choose one decision option. Cite E1 and E3, then explain how the rule connects the evidence to your choice.
Go further, optional: The source links below are optional enrichment. Every fact required for today's local evidence decision appears in this lesson package.
A defensible biomedical decision separates scientific evidence from value judgments, identifies who may benefit or be burdened, and states the uncertainty and tradeoffs that remain.
Limit: Scientific evidence can inform the options and likely consequences, but it cannot choose a single value-neutral answer.
Use science to estimate consequences, then state the value judgment and tradeoff that determine the decision.
Limit: A review-board model organizes reasoning but does not make one ethical principle automatically outweigh every other principle.
You can argue a position you were assigned rather than one you chose.
Limit: E3 defines the classroom product or success criterion. It is not independent scientific evidence and cannot justify a clinical or causal claim.
PLTW-GEND-2026-10-15 · Simulated classroom evidence scenario
Your role: medical interventions team member
Decision: Your team must decide what the evidence from today's lesson supports before submitting the claim-evidence-reasoning response named on today's page.
- • Separate the three things the proposal fuses: consent, resource scarcity, and the difference between letting die and ending a life.
- • Reject the proposal on instinct because euthanasia is involved, without testing whether the consent argument holds.
- • You cannot settle it yet: you need to know whether consent given under scarcity can be free consent at all.
Response: State one choice, cite at least two evidence IDs, explain the rule that connects them, and add one limitation. Submit it as the claim-evidence-reasoning response.
Claim ceiling: Today's evidence supports a classroom claim about today's lesson. It cannot prove causation, diagnose a real patient, or justify action outside this room.
Reason for review: Your team must decide what the evidence from today's lesson supports before submitting the claim-evidence-reasoning response named on today's page.
Context: A position you cannot argue against is a position you do not yet hold, you have only inherited it. The test of your view is whether you can state the other side's best case in a form its holders would accept.
- • T1: Bring your preparation assignment. It is your evidence, and you cannot build a case in the room without it.
- • T2: Sides are assigned now, not before. You may be arguing the side you disagree with.
- • T3: Open with the icebreaker: If you could instantly speak and understand any world language, what would it be, and why?
- • T4: Read the scenario together, then take five minutes with your side to pick your three strongest arguments and decide who leads.
- • T5: Argue. Every claim needs a reason, and a reason someone else could check.
- • T6: Answer the other side's strongest point directly. Restating your own point is not a rebuttal.
- • E1: A defensible biomedical decision separates scientific evidence from value judgments, identifies who may benefit or be burdened, and states the uncertainty and tradeoffs that remain.
- • E2: Use science to estimate consequences, then state the value judgment and tradeoff that determine the decision.
- • E3: You can argue a position you were assigned rather than one you chose.
Measurements: Use only the measurements, units, graph, or counts supplied in today's task. No additional patient measurement is implied.
Figure finding: Teaching diagram for JCU bioethics 4: Euthanasia to reduce use. Trace the labeled testing, treatment, or biological process and identify where evidence limits the decision. This is a teaching model, not patient or experimental data.
Uncertainty: This is a composite classroom scenario. Missing history, measurements, or confirmation tests remain unknown and limit the conclusion.
= final volume / sample volume. New concentration = starting concentration / dilution factor.
Mix 1 mL of sample to a final volume of 10 mL. The is 10. A 100 mg/mL starting sample becomes 10 mg/mL.
Use the same volume units before dividing. Concentration keeps its original concentration unit.
Apply the same setup to one supplied dilution or dose. Show the factor, new value, units, and a reasonableness check.
- • The solution must address the stated need in today's lesson.
- • The decision must be supported by E1-E3.
- • The final product must make the success criteria visible.
- • Complete the work inside the 80-minute block.
- • Use only supplied or teacher-approved materials and evidence.
- • Do not trade , accessibility, or privacy for speed.
- • and evidence quality: must pass before scoring other criteria.
- • User need and effectiveness: highest scored criterion.
- • Time, cost, and ease of use: compare only after and effectiveness pass.
Test evidence: For each option, record the E1-E3 result that supports or fails each criterion. Do not assign a score without a named observation.
- Version or option tested
- Criterion met or missed
- Evidence ID and result
- Revision made
- Reason for the revision
- Need and user
- Criteria and constraints
- Chosen option and evidence
- Test result
- Revision and reason
Parallel case, not today's prompt: A competent adult with terminal disease is deciding whether to stop an invasive treatment that causes severe side effects and no longer changes the expected outcome.
Claim: The care team should honor an informed refusal after confirming decision-making capacity, explaining comfort-care options, and documenting that the choice is voluntary.
Evidence: The treatment causes repeated hospitalizations and pain, while the clinical record shows no meaningful improvement in function or survival. The patient can explain the likely outcomes of continuing and stopping treatment in their own words.
Reasoning: Respect for autonomy is strongest when a person understands the consequences and the treatment no longer provides a proportional benefit. Capacity checks and comfort care protect the patient from coercion and untreated suffering.
Strongest opposing point and response: Family members may argue that stopping treatment gives up too soon. A time-limited second opinion can test that concern, but forcing a capable adult to continue a nonbeneficial treatment replaces the patient's informed values with someone else's hope.
My position after the debate: I support the claim only with the limits named above. A strong ethics argument states the value being protected, uses evidence rather than preference, answers the best counterargument, and names the condition that could change the decision.
This model shows the level of evidence and organization needed to complete: A complete debate worksheet that names the assigned side, gives three evidence-based arguments, answers the strongest opposing point, and ends with the student's own position.
- Write one defensible claim.
- Choose specific evidence that supports the claim.
- Explain the scientific rule that connects the evidence to the claim.
Keep the structure. Replace the question, facts, measurements, and evidence. Then recheck units, vocabulary, and whether the conclusion goes beyond the evidence.
Also due today: Submit one debate worksheet PDF in Schoology before the end of the block.
- CER:
- Claim, Evidence, Reasoning: make a claim, back it with evidence, explain your reasoning.
- SOP:
- Standard Operating Procedure, the exact steps to follow (especially in a lab).
- Tracker:
- Your PLTW progress log where you record completed evidence.
- myPLTW:
- The PLTW course site where you do the online activities. Find it in Clever with your Microsoft sign-in, right next to Schoology.
Practice: try a question, then check your answer▸
Claim ceiling for this check: Today's evidence supports a classroom claim about today's lesson. It cannot prove causation, diagnose a real patient, or justify action outside this room.
Practice an exam-style question on the worked-example page, which includes the answer and rationale.
Missed class or ready for more?▸
What today's skills lead to. These are real health-science careers this course builds toward. Tap one to see, on the US Department of Labor's O*NET site, what the job actually involves, what it pays, and how fast it is growing.
If you are away, write a full CER on the case question, argue both sides fairly, then state and defend your own position. Submit it the way you would the opt-out report.
Hand in the worksheet at the end of the session.
Class still runs. Complete the online activity above (it's self-guided). Need the concept taught without a teacher? Use this authoritative explainer:
JCU Philosophy4Kidz- CompleteEvery required part of the artifact is present, nothing left blank.
- AccurateThe science and the data are correct and match the evidence.
- Scientific reasoningYou explain your claim with evidence and reasoning (CER), not just an answer.
- Professional communicationClear, organized, labeled, and written the way a clinician or scientist would.
- SubmittedGo to Schoology to turn this in. Submit one PDF. Put your first and last name in the document header. Name the file: FirstName LastName - Assignment Title - YYYY-MM-DD.pdf. If you cannot get in, see Mr. Mendoza. Do not skip the work.
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