The First Lego League is a world wide robotics competition for children of ages of nine to fourteen years old. This was a collaboration of the company First and the Lego group meant to stimulate the growth of the minds of future leaders in science and technology. They believe that this competition encourages children to create innovative robotic systems that promotes preparation for various STEM applications such as, food safety and distribution, energy, and recycling. Furthermore, it is designed to create presentation skills, collaborative skills, and critical thinking skills. Students are given challenging task that are to be completed with a specific robot design using Legos and imbedded computer systems. Once the robots are built, the students are given time for testing with a specific course and time constraint which is similar to the actual competition design.
Ethics has a significant role in why the urban schools had inferior performance compared to the suburban schools. It seemed as if the suburban schools have access to more information. This is a given due to the fact that the schools in suburban areas have more financial power. As a result, the education quality is far better than what is available in urban areas. Furthermore, the parents are more traditionally educated. As a result, the children have more disciplinary ethics distilled within them. Still, that is not the unfair issue. These disadvantages have fundamental ethics issues as a society. Although the First Lego League was formed with intensions of advancing young minds for the professional environment; there are several codes of ethics the are not to be violated.
According to Ethics: for the information age, “ A fully developed profession has a well-organized infrastructure for certifying new members and supporting those who already belong to the profession(415). Which mean corporations have a great impact on where and how information is delivered. This corresponds to the eight components of a mature professional infrastructure which was identified by Norman E. Gibbs and Gary Ford 1996. The eight components are(415):
• Initial professional education-formal course work completed by candidates before they begin practicing the profession
• Accreditation-assures that the formal course work meets the standards of the profession
• Skills development-activities that provide candidates with the opportunity to gain practical skills needed to practice the profession
• Certification-process by which candidates are evaluated to determine their readiness to enter the profession
• Licensing-the process giving candidates the legal right to practice the profession
• Professional development-formal course work completed by professionals in order to maintain and develop their knowledge and skills
• Code of ethics-mechanism by which a profession ensures that its members will use their knowledge and skills for the benefit of society
• Professional society-organization promoting the welfare of the profession, typically consisting of most if not all of the members of the profession
Each component of this infrastructure is a way to control the distribution of information. Corporations use copyright to enforce these eight components. Although some information can be used for educational purposes without the violation of copyright laws, they charge for text books. Most urban schools can do not have the budget for high expense of these text book required to be current. It showed in the performance of the in the robotics competition.
Volunteering for the First Lego League was a great experience. I loved working with and encouraging the children during the competition. Although the intensions of the league were good, I feel there were ethical issues that could easily be resolved just by even distribution of information. By eliminating or revising the infrastructure of the professional environment, these young children could build the confidence needed to be competitive in, not only the First Lego League but, the professional environment.
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