In essence, National High School Ethics Bowl is a competitive discussion. Teams compete to give the most accurate, comprehensive, clear, and complete answer to the match question. Each two-match round involves presenting an initial take on the question at hand (6 mins.), defending it against the opposing team’s critique (3 mins.), and responding to questions from a three-judge panel composed of academic and non-academic professionals (10 mins.). The questions focus on one or more aspects of a case drawn from a set of fifteen cases that teams have worked with for roughly two months prior to competition.

National High School Ethics Bowl (NHSEB) is the arm of the Parr Center for Ethics at the University of North Carolina (UNC) responsible for organizing regional and national competition each year. Regionals are held around the U.S. and colleges and universities self-select which regional they’ll participate in. If a school wins a bid to nationals due to their regional performance, they head to UNC to compete with other bid winners. The University of Nebraska has sent teams to Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl's national competition twice since the inception of the UNL Ethics Bowl Team in 2011. We aim to help our high school partner schools achieve similar success.

Of course, as the saying goes, ‘Winning isn’t everything.’ That certainly rings true in the case of participating in ethics bowl. The work individual team members due to prepare themselves and the team for competition significantly develops their skills at critical and moral reasoning as well as their abilities to speak and reason publicly with an interested community. In particular, members can expect to (a) sharpen their intellect, (b) develop their interrogative and contrarian dispositions, (c) deepen their interest in exploring and analyzing complex situations and concepts as well as their ability to do so, and (d) cultivate the virtue of epistemic humility. Hence, win or lose in competition participants efforts are meaningfully rewarded.

We’re always recruiting! If you think that your students or friends could put together a team to represent your high school in National High School Ethics Bowl, please, don’t hesitate to contact assistant director, Adam R. Thompson (art AT unl DOT edu). Like Lincoln, Nebraska, and the world we can always use more Husker excellence.

We’re always recruiting!

If you think that your students or friends could put together a team to represent your high school in National High School Ethics Bowl, please, don’t hesitate to contact Please contact director, Adam R. Thompson.

Roster

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 a picture of Waverly team

Waverly Team

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Cass Didier

Head Coach

Sponsors

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For over a decade the Department of Philosophy has generously made room for the Ethics Center's main office and has financially supported the UNL Ethics Bowl Team and the Ethics and Broader Considerations of Technology Bazaar as well as other ventures. We're lucky to be surrounded by good company and extra lucky to be housed in the home of ethics proper.

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Waverly High School is in Nebraska District 145 and serves Waverly and nearby communities in eastern Nebraska. The school is located roughly 20 minutes from the University of Nebraska.