A Brief History of the Ethics Bowl China

And the story on how we managed to build a community of morally engaged teenagers in the middle of a pandemic. Click on the boxes to learn more about the news.

2019
5 Sep

The Shanghai Interscholastic Ethics Bowl (SIEB) was officially founded. We established contact with the US Ethics Bowl and published our first website.

1 Oct

We have a team of eight in charge of all logistics of the SIEB program. We reached out to schools and institutions to recruit potential judges and teams. Meanwhile, we started to develop the official documents of our Ethics Bowl competition, adapting from the original US Ethics Bowl documents.

25 Dec

Having just updated our website to a brand new version, the SIEB was officially open for registration. We made our event totally free of charge for students and that includes our online courses!

2020
9 Jan

64 teams from 15 schools across 2 provinces registered for our event!
13 Jan

More than 180 students joined our first series of information sessions live.
16 Jan

We conducted interviews for students based on our self-designed rubric. 20 teams (101 students) from 15 schools across 2 provinces (Shanghai & Wuhan, Hubei) were selected to participate in the Shanghai competition, though all candidates can still join our online seminars. Click here for the list of participating schools.

22 Jan

The SIEB was postponed due to the COVID-19 outbreak. We strived to find alternative solutions for our event.
7 Feb

Since the pandemic, we moved our ethical discussions online. On Feb 7th, we invited the US Ethics Bowl director and coaches to speak at one of our online seminars. They shared with our participants some valuable advice on preparing for the Ethics Bowl competition.
19 Feb

We launched our first-ever Ethics Bowl case competition! High schoolers nationwide can submit their own case with their reflections on what they've learned from the current pandemic. For example, one of the award-winning cases talks about the moral dilemma of choosing which patient to give the in-demand ventilators to while leaving several others tragically dying without ventilators.
22-25 Feb

Another three online seminars with participants and coaches are held. Led by our instructors, students discussed the ethical cases in breakout rooms after each lecture. Teams will submit the assignments to be graded and commented by our instructors.

2 April

We launched the first Australian/Chinese Ethics Bowl Friendly in collaboration with the Australasian Ethics Olympiad.
28 April

The Ethics Bowl China (EBC) was founded after we made plans to develop affiliated regional Ethics Bowls across China.
22 June

We had our first affiliated regional competition: the Sichuan Chapter of the Ethics Bowl China! Click here to visit their webiste. The EBC provides all kinds of support for our regional organizers, including promotions, fundraising, materials, and international collaboration opportunities.

25 June

In collaboration with the Australasian Ethics Olympiad and the Canadian Ethics Olympiad, we launched the first International Ethics Bowl/Olympiad, with 6 teams from 3 countries and judges from 9 different time zones across the world.
9 July

The EBC director Leo Huang joined an online meeting with the US, UK, Australia, and Canada Ethics Bowl/Olympiad directors. We all agreed to explore opportunities for more collaborations in the global Ethics Bowl community.

2 Aug

The Shanghai Interscholastic Ethics Bowl Online was held. Although not having the chance to communicate face-to-face, participants still enjoyed a whole day of insightful and heated ethical discussions with each other. Congratulations to Shanghai Hua'er School for claiming the first place!
13 Aug

The Sichuan Chapter of the Ethics Bowl China was held. Participants discussed contentious ethical issues and enjoyed the constructive and insightful discourse of the Ethics Bowl.
2021
31 Jan

The 2021 Moral Philosophy Workshop, a 4-day seminar series held from 1/31 to 2/3, introduced students to a variety of topics in moral philosophy while preparing them for the coming Shanghai Interscholastic Ethics Bowl. 130 students from 26 schools across China participated in the 6 seminars led by 7 professionals in ethics from across the globe.
7 Feb

The 2021 Shanghai Intersholastic Ethics Bowl (SIEB) was held on Feb. 7th with 14 teams from 4 provinces across the country participating. The SIEB, for the first time, took a hybrid format, in which Shanghai teams gathered in person, while teams from other provinces joined online. Congratulations to SMIC School from Shanghai for claiming first place!

28 Feb
We held the first-ever Ethics Across Our Borders with the Manitoba Association for Rights and Liberties in Canada. Students from 9 schools in Manitoba, Shanghai, Guangdong, Connecticut, and Massachusetts joined us in the program. The event took an ethics café format, where in each round, students are placed in heterogeneous groups of six to seven in breakout rooms led by moderators.