Bioethics: performance enhancement
Do now
Debate whether muscle-enhancing drugs should be allowed in sports, then post a CER.
- Hand in
- One-paragraph CER taking a position on whether performance-enhancing drugs should be permitted in competitive sport.
- Where
- Turn this in at the drop folder with your district Microsoft sign-in, or hand it to Mr. Mendoza in class. Both count as submitted. Doing the activity in myPLTW does not.
You get two school days for every day you were absent, so this deadline moves with you.
Should an athlete be allowed to take a drug that builds muscle faster, even if that same drug can damage the heart and forces clean competitors to dope just to keep up?
Debate whether muscle-enhancing drugs should be allowed in sports, then post a CER.
- • You can defend a position on muscle-enhancing drugs.
- • You can weigh fairness against health risk.
- Name one reason a coach might want an athlete to take a muscle-building drug, and one reason a doctor would warn against it.
- If half the runners in a race are secretly doping, what pressure does that put on the runners who are not?
- 1Read the prompt: should athletes be permitted to use drugs that build muscle faster?
- 2List two arguments for allowing enhancement and two for banning it.
- 3Choose a side and write a one-sentence claim with your reasoning.
- 4Debate in your John Carroll bioethics group and note the strongest opposing point.
- 5Post a CER response on fairness and health in enhancement.
What did this day actually feel like?
Bioethics: performance enhancement
ETHICS DAY Should athletes be allowed drugs that build muscle faster? I said no and got asked why training at altitude is fine but a drug is not, since both are deliberate manipulation of physiology.
I did not have a clean line. The best I got to was that one carries a health cost the athlete may not be able to refuse if everyone else is taking it. That is a coercion argument, not a fairness argument, and it is a better one than what I walked in with.
AT HOME, THE NIGHT BEFORE TUE FEB 23 Sarcomere and contraction The sarcomere. Actin and myosin, Z-lines, A-band, I-band, and the sliding filament model.
Every voluntary movement you have ever made is filaments ratcheting past each other. The muscle does not contract by shrinking, the filaments slide across each other and the whole thing gets shorter. I labeled the diagram three times before the bands were in the right places.
Turned in: labeled sarcomere diagram → Lab Notebooks folder
Fiction. There is no such student. The lessons, labs and dates are the real planned course; the student, the classmates and the conversations are invented.
The same day, drawn.
Should athletes be allowed drugs that build muscle faster? I said no and got asked why training at altitude is fine but a drug is not, since both are deliberate manipulation of physiology.
Fiction. There is no such student. The lessons, labs and dates are the real planned course; the student, the classmates and the conversations are invented.
🛠 Get unstuck · pick your level
🔑 Today's words · 5
Tap a word in the lesson for a plain meaning and one example. Recycled into next week's Do-Now.
Do the work · 80-minute blockfirst 5 min = hook▸
💡 Big idea: Performance-enhancing drugs change muscle physiology through real pathways, so they create health risks and fairness problems at the same time and cannot be judged on winning alone.
- 0-5Intro: how performance drugs change muscle physiology
- 5-20Independent reading and two-column pro/con list
- 20-40John Carroll bioethics debate
- 40-55Draft claim and evidence
- 55-75Write and post CER
- 75-80Class share: strongest health vs fairness arguments
- • This week we study the muscular system from the to the full muscle. Before we do that, we have a question this system raises directly.
- • Drugs that force muscles to grow faster are real, available, and banned in most sports. Should they be?
- • Your CER today must take a specific position. Not just that drugs are bad. A position on the fairness and health trade-off.
- • Listen for the term anabolic in the reading. That word connects to the muscle biology we start tomorrow.
- • Anabolic steroids mimic testosterone and increase muscle synthesis, but side effects include cardiovascular damage, hormonal disruption, and liver toxicity.
- • The fairness argument against enhancement centers on coercion: if some athletes use drugs, others feel forced to do so to compete.
- • Bioethical reasoning requires weighing physical autonomy (right to use) against health harm and competitive equity.
Unit 1.2 Muscles and Motion: Muscle contraction, muscle orientation, Maniken muscle build, movement and biomechanics. · Bioethics: performance enhancement
Day 1 of this lesson. Open this exact section in myPLTW (find it in Clever, Microsoft sign-in), then do the work below.
Do this: Open Lesson 1.2 Muscles and Motion in myPLTW and complete the introductory task for this lesson; connect one fact about anabolic muscle physiology to your performance-enhancement CER.
Mark the introductory task complete after posting your CER.
You finished Lesson 1.1 bone content; this begins Lesson 1.2, and the introductory task should be checked off today.
myPLTW completion status plus CER screenshot.
The official PLTW activity stays inside myPLTW. If myPLTW will not open, use F1 and E1-E3 on this page to complete today's local evidence decision, then make up the official activity when access returns. Turn this in at the drop folder with your district Microsoft sign-in, or hand it to Mr. Mendoza in class. Both count as submitted. Doing the activity in myPLTW does not.
Check things off as you work, then submit. This tells Mr. Mendoza how you're doing so he can help the class. It does not replace turning in your producible through the submission route shown below.
Use the code Mr. Mendoza gave you, not your name. Saved on this device.
Unit 1.2 Muscles and Motion: Muscle contraction, muscle orientation, Maniken muscle build, movement and biomechanics. · Bioethics: performance enhancement
Open Lesson 1.2 Muscles and Motion in myPLTW and complete the introductory task for this lesson; connect one fact about anabolic muscle physiology to your performance-enhancement CER.
You finished Lesson 1.1 bone content; this begins Lesson 1.2, and the introductory task should be checked off today.
This is how Mr. Mendoza sees the class keeping pace with PLTW. Be honest, it only helps if it is accurate.
🎯 Debate whether muscle-enhancing drugs should be allowed in sports, then post a CER.
- Read the prompt: should athletes be permitted to use drugs that build muscle faster?
- List two arguments for allowing enhancement and two for banning it.
- Choose a side and write a one-sentence claim with your reasoning.
- Debate in your John Carroll bioethics group and note the strongest opposing point.
- Post a CER response on fairness and health in enhancement.
CER: One-paragraph CER taking a position on whether performance-enhancing drugs should be permitted in competitive sport.
Turn this in at the drop folder with your district Microsoft sign-in, or hand it to Mr. Mendoza in class. Both count as submitted. Doing the activity in myPLTW does not. Use the checklist just below and upload by 11:29 PM for full credit. Absent with an excused absence? You get two school days for every day you were absent, so this deadline moves with you.
| Task | Who |
|---|---|
| Read the prompt: should athletes be permitted to use drugs that build muscle faster? | _______ |
| List two arguments for allowing enhancement and two for banning it. | _______ |
| Choose a side and write a one-sentence claim with your reasoning. | _______ |
| Debate in your John Carroll bioethics group and note the strongest opposing point. | _______ |
| Post a CER response on fairness and health in enhancement. | _______ |
Working solo? Put your own name in "Who" for every row.
- You can defend a position on muscle-enhancing drugs.
- You can weigh fairness against health risk.
- 1Do thisDebate whether muscle-enhancing drugs should be allowed in sports, then post a CER.
- 2Use this resource
- 3Submit thisCER: One-paragraph CER taking a position on whether performance-enhancing drugs should be permitted in competitive sport.
- 4Submit it here
- 1Open the drop folder.
- 2Sign in with your district Microsoft account, not a personal one.
- 3Upload the file, named Lastname_Firstname__Assignment Title.
- 4Your own upload panel says Uploaded with a green check: that is your receipt.
Turn this in at the drop folder with your district Microsoft sign-in, or hand it to Mr. Mendoza in class. Both count as submitted. Doing the activity in myPLTW does not. Human Anatomy & Physiology (Human Body Systems) › Unit 1.2 Muscles and Motion: Muscle contraction, muscle orientation, Maniken muscle build, movement and biomechanics. › CEROpen the drop folder
Learn it · deck, reading, 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.
Because bone repair runs through a fixed four-stage sequence driven by osteoblasts and osteoclasts, doctors choose a repair technology by matching it to the stage and severity that need support, so care follows the biology.
Performance-enhancing drugs change muscle physiology through real pathways, so they create health risks and fairness problems at the same time and cannot be judged on winning alone.
A thermostat compares a room reading with a set point and changes the heater.
- What is measured?
- What is the target?
- What response reduces the difference?
detects a change and produces a response that reduces that change.
Body systems use many interacting signals and delays, not one simple thermostat wire.
- • Room reading maps to the measured variable.
- • Set point maps to the regulated range.
- • Heater response maps to an response.
Driving question: Should an athlete be allowed to take a drug that builds muscle faster, even if that same drug can damage the heart and forces clean competitors to dope just to keep up?
What you already know: Because bone repair runs through a fixed four-stage sequence driven by osteoblasts and osteoclasts, doctors choose a repair technology by matching it to the stage and severity that need support, so care follows the biology.
New idea: Performance-enhancing drugs change muscle physiology through real pathways, so they create health risks and fairness problems at the same time and cannot be judged on winning alone.
Visual or model: F1. F1. A lesson illustration or teaching diagram for Bioethics: performance enhancement. Use it with E1-E3; it is a model or context image, not experimental or patient data. What to notice: Trace the labeled structure, movement, or system relationship that connects form to function.
- Observe or measure the relevant feature in Bioethics: performance enhancement.
- Organize the observation with a stable evidence ID.
- Apply this rule: detects a change and produces a response that reduces that change.
- Choose the option the evidence supports and state the limit of the conclusion.
Real biomedical example: Should an athlete be allowed to take a drug that builds muscle faster, even if that same drug can damage the heart and forces clean competitors to dope just to keep up?
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.
- • : The basic contracting unit of a muscle fiber, made of overlapping and filaments that slide past each other to shorten the muscle.
- • : A that forms thin filaments inside cells and slides past to produce muscle and cell movement.
- • : A motor in muscle whose heads grab and pull on filaments, producing the sliding motion that contracts the muscle.
- • : The shortening of a muscle as its fibers pull together, generating force to move bones, pump blood, or squeeze organs.
- • : A tough band of that anchors a muscle to a bone, transferring the muscle's pull so the bone can move.
- • origin: The fixed, anchoring attachment point of a muscle on a bone, which stays still while the muscle pulls on its other end.
- • : The end of a skeletal muscle attached to the bone that moves when the muscle contracts, as opposed to the more fixed origin end.
- • lever: A rigid bar that pivots at a fixed point to move a load, the simple machine that bones, joints, and muscles form to create movement.
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.
Anabolic steroids mimic testosterone and increase muscle synthesis, but side effects include cardiovascular damage, hormonal disruption, and liver toxicity.
Limit: E1 supplies context or an observation; it does not by itself establish the explanation.
Performance-enhancing drugs change muscle physiology through real pathways, so they create health risks and fairness problems at the same time and cannot be judged on winning alone.
Limit: E2 is a teaching statement or comparison and must be checked against the task evidence.
You can defend a position on muscle-enhancing drugs.
Limit: E3 supports only the result or product criterion named here; it cannot justify a broader clinical or causal claim.
PLTW-HAP-2027-02-19 · Simulated classroom evidence scenario
Your role: anatomy and physiology consultant
Decision: Your team must decide what the evidence from Bioethics: performance enhancement supports before submitting the claim-evidence-reasoning response named on the lesson page.
- • Select the option best supported by E1-E3.
- • Select a reasonable alternative and name the evidence it would require.
- • Delay the claim because the evidence does not distinguish the options.
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: The supplied lesson evidence can support an observation, pattern, classroom mechanism, or next-step decision about Bioethics: performance enhancement. It cannot by itself prove causation, establish a real clinical diagnosis, or justify action outside this classroom task.
Reason for review: Your team must decide what the evidence from Bioethics: performance enhancement supports before submitting the claim-evidence-reasoning response named on the lesson page.
Context: Anything that changes how muscle works also changes the whole body, so a choice that helps performance can harm health and fairness at the same time.
- • T1: Read the prompt: should athletes be permitted to use drugs that build muscle faster?
- • T2: List two arguments for allowing enhancement and two for banning it.
- • T3: Choose a side and write a one-sentence claim with your reasoning.
- • T4: Debate in your John Carroll bioethics group and note the strongest opposing point.
- • T5: Post a CER response on fairness and health in enhancement.
- • E1: Anabolic steroids mimic testosterone and increase muscle synthesis, but side effects include cardiovascular damage, hormonal disruption, and liver toxicity.
- • E2: Performance-enhancing drugs change muscle physiology through real pathways, so they create health risks and fairness problems at the same time and cannot be judged on winning alone.
- • E3: You can defend a position on muscle-enhancing drugs.
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 Bioethics: performance enhancement. Trace the labeled structure, movement, or system relationship that connects form to function. 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.
Mean = sum of values / number of values. Median = middle ordered value. Range = maximum - minimum.
For 2, 4, 4, and 10: mean = 20 / 4 = 5, median = 4, and range = 10 - 2 = 8.
Mean, median, and range keep the measurement unit. Order the values before finding the median.
Calculate the requested summary for today's supplied values, then write what it reveals and what it hides.
Students often think Students often think steroids are dangerous only because they are cheating, so a 'clean' or legal version would be safe.. The trap: The danger is biological, not just legal. Anabolic steroids mimic testosterone and push muscle synthesis, but the same signal also thickens the heart and disrupts the body's own hormone production, so making them legal would not remove the cardiovascular and liver harm.
Claim: Students without a medical diagnosis should not be permitted to use prescription stimulants such as amphetamine drugs to boost their performance on exams.\nEvidence: Prescription stimulants raise the level of dopamine and norepinephrine in the brain, which can increase short-term alertness and focus. In people without a condition like ADHD, though, they also carry documented risks including raised heart rate and blood pressure, disrupted sleep, anxiety, and the potential for dependence. On top of the health risks, if some students take a pill to stay sharp during a high-stakes test, other students feel pressure to do the same just to keep their scores competitive.\nReasoning: Allowing non-medical stimulant use creates a coercion problem that looks a lot like other enhancement debates: students who would rather not take a drug are pushed to risk their health so they are not left behind. Because these stimulants cause real physical and psychological harm in people who do not need them, and because they turn a test of preparation into a test of who is willing to medicate, restricting non-medical use protects both student health and the fairness of the assessment. That combined harm outweighs an individual student's claim to use whatever they want to get an edge.\nCounter-argument I heard and my response: A classmate argued that students are old enough to make their own choices about their own bodies. I agree that personal autonomy matters, but in a shared, graded setting one student's choice raises the bar for everyone else and forces a health risk onto peers who never wanted it. Because the harm spills over onto others and the drug carries real dangers, the fairness and safety concerns justify the restriction.
This model shows the level of evidence and organization needed to complete: A short claim-evidence-reasoning post that models the format on a parallel bioethics case, whether students without a prescription should be allowed to use stimulant drugs to boost test performance, so students can see the depth and structure without seeing an answer to today's own sports-doping question.
- 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: Post to the class board and screenshot for your evidence packet.
- 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.
Tap the speaker to hear a term. Add two of these to your notebook glossary with a definition and an example in your own words.
Pick just 2 or 3 words from today and make them yours: write what each one means in your own words, name the context clue or evidence that helped, then give one example from what you actually did in Bioethics: performance enhancement. Try your own words first; the glossary is there if you get stuck. This is voluntary and counts as extra credit, so keep it short.
Saved on this device. Show Mr. Mendoza or add these to your notebook glossary to claim the extra credit.
Hand-picked readings, videos, and interactives for this lesson, all free and from authoritative open organizations (NIH, CDC, OpenStax, Khan Academy, PhET, HHMI, and more).
A fillable, Cornell-style notebook for Unit 1: Road to Rehabilitation. Type your notes, cues, and summaries right in the PDF, or print it and write by hand. Each lesson page has a cue column, a notes column, and a summary box, plus dated lab-record pages you can turn in.
HBS Unit 1 notebook: Road to Rehabilitation Fillable PDFCornell notes + lab recordsOpenVetted readings and references for this unit. Use them to prepare, to catch up if you were absent, or to go deeper on today's target.
Check yourself · commit, then reveal▸
Claim ceiling for this check: The supplied lesson evidence can support an observation, pattern, classroom mechanism, or next-step decision about Bioethics: performance enhancement. It cannot by itself prove causation, establish a real clinical diagnosis, or justify action outside this classroom task.
Give one health reason and one fairness reason that anabolic steroids are banned in sports. They must be different kinds of reasons.
Write an answer and pick a confidence to unlock the key.
Fast retrieval with instant answers, not the commit-then-reveal check above. Try each from memory first: write what you remember about the earlier units, then check yourself here.
Go further and get help▸
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.
Read the linked overview on anabolic steroids, then post a written CER on whether muscle enhancement should be allowed in sport, citing one fact from the resource.
MedlinePlus: Anabolic steroidsThen submit your CER. Turn this in at the drop folder with your district Microsoft sign-in, or hand it to Mr. Mendoza in class. Both count as submitted. Doing the activity in myPLTW does not.
Class still runs. Complete the online activity above (it's self-guided). Need the concept taught without a teacher? Use this authoritative explainer:
Khan Academy: Muscular System- 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.
- SubmittedTurned in the right way, on the class site or handed to Mr. Mendoza in class, and confirmed. Not in Schoology: that is where the report-card grade appears later.