Ethics Case Studies
Everyone will research the following engineering disasters below and compile a poster explaining the ethical issues present. Then, you will review the posters for each of the other cases and respond with comments. You will be graded on both your poster submission and your comments about other’s posters.
Topics to be covered by your team – one topic per team member
- Hyatt Regency Walkway Collapse – Kansas City
- Ford Pinto
- Volkswagen Emissions
- Apollo 1 Spacecraft
- Research the event, gathering as much detail as possible.Be sure to relate to the NSPE Code of Ethics for Engineers. Use MLA citations. You need to include at least 3 sources
- Then, create a poster (using a single PowerPoint slide) outlining the following items:
- Case study name, team member names, course information
- What happened?
- Who was responsible?
- What was ethically wrong with the case?
- What could have been handled differently?
- What were the consequences and outcomes of the poor decisions?
- References
Individual members should post their research poster to their team’s discussion board by creating a new thread and titling it the name of the case. This part is due 6/15 by 11:59 PM.
- Finally, you will review each of the other cases presented by your team mates and comment on the following:
- Did the posters completely and accurately explain the basic details of the case? Were any components unclear? Was the level of detail appropriate (not too in-depth or too vague)?
- Do you agree with the teams’ analysis regarding the ethical issues present in the case? Why or why not? Are there any additional concerns you see?
- Do you agree with the team’s explanation of how the situation could have been handled differently? Why or why not? Would you suggest anything different?