Ethics Overview

Many curricular expectations in Alberta Ethics courses relate to media and digital literacy. The following excerpts from Ethics A.1 (Junior High) (1985) detail how media and digital literacy have been integrated into the curriculum:

Junior high students are at various stages of emotional, physical, ethical and cognitive development which necessitates that varying instructional strategies be used. Although they are at various stages, all students, if they are to personalize values and act ethically, must be given the opportunity to experience, in a concrete manner, the positive changes that can result from ethical behaviour.

The aim of the ethics course is to help students to become more thoughtful, to think of the interests of others, and to see the ethical implications in their daily lives.

On the left menu you will find outcome charts containing media-related learning outcomes from the Ethics curriculum, with links to supporting resources on the MediaSmarts site. As many of our lessons can be adapted to suit different grade levels, specific lessons may be listed for more than one grade. Teachers should also note that individual lessons often satisfy a number of learning outcomes.