JCU bioethics 6: Cochlear implants before the age of consent
Open your materials, follow the steps, then turn in your work.
Argue an assigned side of this question: Should children reach the age of consent before cochlear implants or other medical interventions are allowed?
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.
Show all 7 required steps
- 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: What is your dream job, 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.
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How this lesson connects
Keep using what you learned last class: A heat map encodes fold-change magnitude as color, so it can reveal an elevated-risk pattern, but because expression alone is not clinical confirmation, that pattern signals risk rather than a diagnosis. Today: Should children reach the age of consent before cochlear implants or other medical interventions are allowed?
Need help? Warm-up, timing, and directions▸
💡 Big idea: Should children reach the age of consent before cochlear implants or other medical interventions are allowed?
- 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.
- • Maya is diagnosed with profound hearing loss at birth. Her hearing parents are considering a cochlear implant. Doctors advise that the procedure works best for developing oral language before age five, well before Maya can consent for herself. She is doing fine at preschool. When told about the implant, she says she does not want it.
- • The case for: The implant restores a sensory input system and improves quality of life. Giving a deaf child an implant is like raising a child in a bilingual home, where they learn two languages.
- • The case against: Many in the Deaf community hold that deafness is not a defect to fix but a distinct and identity. The implant takes the child from that culture and takes the child from it.
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 3.1.4 DNA Microarray 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 3.1.4 DNA Microarray.
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.
A heat map encodes fold-change magnitude as color, so it can reveal an elevated-risk pattern, but because expression alone is not clinical confirmation, that pattern signals risk rather than a diagnosis.
Should children reach the age of consent before cochlear implants or other medical interventions are allowed?
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 implantation before the age of consent, or against implantation before the age of consent?
What you already know: A heat map encodes fold-change magnitude as color, so it can reveal an elevated-risk pattern, but because expression alone is not clinical confirmation, that pattern signals risk rather than a diagnosis.
New idea: Should children reach the age of consent before cochlear implants or other medical interventions are allowed?
Visual or model: F1. F1. A lesson illustration or teaching diagram for JCU bioethics 6: Cochlear implants before the age of consent. 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 implantation before the age of consent, or against implantation before the age of consent?
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-2026-10-29 · 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.
- • You cannot settle it yet: you need to know how much weight a four-year-old's stated refusal should carry.
- • Weigh the closing against the irreversibility of the surgery, because those two are what actually collide.
- • Defer to the parents because parents decide for young children, without weighing what the decision forecloses.
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: What is your dream job, 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: No patient measurement is supplied unless it appears explicitly in E1-E3 or F1. Do not invent a value.
Figure finding: Teaching diagram for JCU bioethics 6: Cochlear implants before the age of consent. 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.
Parallel case, not today's prompt: A permanent implant could improve a child's sprint performance but offers no medical benefit and cannot be removed without another major procedure.
Claim: The enhancement should wait until the young person can give meaningful consent because the procedure is irreversible, nonmedical, and changes future choices.
Evidence: The implant provides a performance advantage but requires surgery and carries infection and revision risks. Less invasive training options remain available and do not close off a later decision.
Reasoning: Parents routinely authorize treatment that prevents immediate harm, but a permanent elective enhancement has a different benefit-risk balance. Waiting preserves the child's future autonomy without withholding necessary care.
Strongest opposing point and response: Parents may argue that early implantation creates the greatest competitive benefit. Competitive timing is not a medical emergency, and a possible advantage does not outweigh the child's later right to decide about an irreversible body change.
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 Philosophy4KidzYou've passed Unit 2, so the optional extra-credit track is open. Complete reserved-unit work from home, including virtual labs, for extra credit. Each item shows its correct submission route.
Open the extra-credit track- 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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