Capitalizing on the human-animal bond to teach ethics to youth.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a livestock ethics curriculum developed for high school students in agricultural education classes. The curriculum was developed in response to numerous unethical occurrences at major livestock shows in recent years. These have included drug violations, physical alteration of animals, and excessive involvement of professional livestock handlers. The curriculum was taught to 305 students enrolled in eight Indiana high school agriculture programs. Data were collected using a pretest and posttest. Eighty-six percent of participants improved their score from the pretest to the posttest. Participants increased their awareness and knowledge of the overall principles involved in making ethical choices when faced with decisions in youth livestock programs. Students improved their understanding of the consequences associated with making unethical choices when faced with decisions in the youth livestock program. Participants were more likely to make an ethical choice when faced with a scenario featuring an ethical dilemma. Participants who had previously been enrolled in 4-H, Future Farmers of America, or an animal project had higher scores than those who had not been previously enrolled, but the amount of change from pre- to posttest was similar for those with and without such prior exposure. Future research should examine whether mastery of this kind of ethics curriculum will lead to better ethical choices in real-life situations.