Teaching resources

These resources provide guidance on how the Ethical Capability curriculum content can be unpacked for students. They contain sample key ideas and concepts, plus suggestions for learning activities aligned to each content description and achievement standard.

Ethical Capability, Unpacking the content descriptions: Foundation to Level 6  

Ethical Capability, Unpacking the content descriptions: Levels 7 to 10 

The Ethical Capability curriculum requires students to understand and apply ethical principles. Often this is part of the analysis and evaluation of an ethical issue. This resource provides a selection of common ethical principles and demonstrates how these principles might be contextualised for a specific issue.

List of Ethical Principles

This series of teacher resources comprises short sample units of work for Levels 7–10.  These units are typically 50- or 100-minute sessions that target the teaching of one content description.

Each unit contains:

• teaching points (unpacking the content description)
• example teaching and learning and assessment activities
• suggested further resources.

What does it mean to be free? Levels 7 and 8

This unit consists of one standalone 100-minute session or two 50-minute sessions that introduce students to one of the Levels 7 and 8 content descriptions: Explore the contested meaning of concepts including freedom, justice, and rights and responsibilities, and the extent they are and should be valued by different individuals and groups (VCECD014). Students explore two different ways of defining freedom and some barriers and enablers linked to these two concepts of freedom. They investigate how the value of freedom is represented in human rights and visual artworks.

Investigating why ethical principles may differ between individuals and groups, Levels 7 and 8

This unit consists of two standalone 50-minute sessions. It introduces students to one of the Levels 7 and 8 content descriptions: Investigate why ethical principles may differ between people and groups, considering the influence of cultural norms, world views and philosophical thought (VCECU015). Examples are used to develop a list of reasons for why ethical principles may differ between individuals and groups. Students reflect on whether it is common to have differences in principles between individuals and groups and what kind of situations might lead to similarities and differences. They independently apply their learning to an example given by the teacher or that they researched themselves.

What matters? (Determining ethical significance), Levels 7 and 8

This unit is a standalone 100-minute session that introduces students to one of the Levels 7 and 8 content descriptions: Investigate criteria for determining the relative importance of matters of ethical concern (VCECU016). Students draw on the issue of fracking to learn ways to compare the relative importance of ethical considerations. They are introduced to questions that can help to identify relative importance in relation to any issue.

Exploring special obligations, duties and consequences in ethical decision-making and action, Levels 7 and 8

This unit consists of two stand-alone 50-minute sessions that introduce students to one of the Levels 7 and 8 content descriptions: Explore the extent of ethical obligation and the implications for thinking about consequences and duties in decision-making and action (VCECD017). Students are introduced to the concept of ethical obligation as well as consequentialist ethics, including the utility principle. They consider how different views on where ethical obligation lies affect decision-making when using the consequentialist approach called utilitarianism. They learn criteria and other factors that can be applied to analyse the degree of ethical responsibility held by people in a particular situation.

Discuss the role of context and experience, Levels 7 and 8

This unit is a standalone 50-minute session that introduces students to one of the Levels 7 and 8 content descriptions: Discuss the role of context and experience in ethical decision-making and actions (VCECD018). Students are introduced to the impact that context and experience may have on ethical decision-making and actions. They explore how experience and context can influence how we think about consequences and where obligations lie, as well as how we decide what ethical principle might be used to guide decision-making.

Is there a difference between fairness and equality? Levels 9 and 10

This unit consists of two standalone 50-minute sessions. It introduces students to the concepts of fairness and equality in one of the Levels 9 and 10 content descriptions: Investigate the connections and distinctions between and the relative value of concepts including fairness and equality, and respect and tolerance (VCECU019). Inequalities that occur in nature are used as a stimulus to develop definitions of fairness and equality, identify their contestabilities and discuss their value. Students consider why Australian society values both fairness and equality.

The same ethical principles – but different positions, Levels 9 and 10 

This unit consists of two standalone 50-minute sessions that introduce students to one of the Levels 9 and 10 content descriptions: Explore a range of ethical problems and examine the extent to which different positions are related to commonly held ethical concepts and principles, considering the influence of cultural norms, religion, world views and philosophical thought (VCECU020). Students are introduced to a range of reasons as to why ethical principles may be shared by people but lead to different actions. They consider opposing views on the ethical treatment of animals in order to explore the influence of cultural norms, world views and philosophical thought.

Distinguishing between the ethical and non-ethical in complex issues, Levels 9 and 10 

This unit is a standalone 50-minute session that introduces students to one of the Levels 9 and 10 content descriptions: Distinguish between the ethical and non-ethical dimensions of complex issues, including the distinction between ethical and legal issues (VCECU021). Students draw on the complex issue of sweatshop fashion as an example to help build capacity to distinguish between ethical and non-ethical considerations, including ethical and legal. Students are introduced to questions that can help to identify ethical considerations for any issue.

Consequences and duties - Issues and problems, Levels 9 and 10

This unit is a standalone 100-minute session that introduces students to the Levels 9 and 10 content description: Discuss issues raised by thinking about consequences and duties, in approaches to decision-making and action, and arguments for and against these approaches (VCECD022). Students compare alternative approaches to resolving ethical dilemmas using hypothetical dilemmas. They also identify and discuss arguments for and against consequentialist and deontological (duty-based) approaches to ethical decision-making.

Managing the factors involved in ethical decision-making, Levels 9 and 10

This 100-minute sample unit introduces students to the Levels 9 and 10 content description: Investigate how different factors involved in ethical decision-making can be managed by people and groups (VCECD023). Students explore rationality as a common strategy to manage factors that influence ethical decision-making. They consider whether being purely rational is possible and desirable when making ethical decisions, using a well-known thought experiment and a film excerpt to stimulate discussion.

Content descriptions within a range of curriculum areas link to the Ethical Capability curriculum.

Some content relates to ethical issues. Some of these issues share a common theme but are explored through different contexts, while others are specific to a particular learning area.

Other content descriptions concern ethics, in that students could engage with the content more deeply with support from Ethical Capability, but do not necessarily require analysis and evaluation of an ethical issue; for example, they may be limited to exploration of an ethical concept.

This resource identifies for Levels 7–10:

• content descriptions from a range of learning areas that could be contextualised for a range of ethical issues
• common themes across a number of learning areas and specific content descriptions linked to each of them from different learning areas
• content descriptions from a range of learning areas that link to Ethical Capability but are not directly concerned with ethical issues, for example which are limited to ethical concepts.

Curriculum map introduction: Ethical issues and concepts across the Victorian Curriculum: Levels 7 to 10

Ethical Capability curriculum map

Several learning areas within the Victorian Curriculum: F–10 either mandate particular ethical issues for study or provide opportunities to teach an ethical issue.

The Teaching ethical issues: planning tool helps identify which Ethical Capability content descriptions need to be introduced and taught to students. The Student ethical issue reflection tool is to assist students to track their progress in the analysis and evaluation of an ethical issue.  It can also be used for students to demonstrate progress in their learning for teacher feedback.

The number of Ethical Capability content descriptions to be taught will depend on the nature of the ethical issue, how much time is available, student prior learning and other factors.

This planning tool can be used to help make key decisions that will then influence the final design of the unit of work. It will help to identify where the priority teaching focus will be.

For resources that explore teaching bioethical issues in primary and secondary classrooms, go to the VCAA’s Science teaching resources. These resources incorporate content from both the Ethical Capability and Science curriculums, including the Biological sciences and Science as a human endeavour sub-strands.

The following documents contain annotated lists of classroom resources that illustrate the kind of resources that can be used when designing teaching and learning activities for Ethical Capability. 

The listed classroom resources range from online philosophy games, articles, videos and podcasts to fiction and non-fiction published texts. They can be used as stimulus for discussion or as models for making decisions or reasoning in response to ethical problems. Each is aligned to one or more Ethical Capability content descriptions.

Note: The listed resources are provided as examples only. Teachers should review the appropriateness of each resource, with respect to the particular needs and backgrounds of the learners in their classroom, before introducing the resource to a class.

Ethical Capability – a selection of classroom resources, Foundation to Level 2

Ethical Capability – a selection of classroom resources, Levels 3 to 6

Ethical Capability – a selection of classroom resources, Levels 7 and 8 

Ethical Capability – a selection of classroom resources, Levels 9 and 10

The following external links are for teacher reference purposes. They do not constitute VCAA endorsement of the views or materials contained on these sites.

Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy