Sign up for project updates, including the release of educational materials for each episode of the playing god? podcast.
The Berman Institute is partnering with a group of nationally recognized K-12 educators from across the country to bring bioethics into science classes everywhere.
Drawing upon the Institute-produced podcast playing god? for its source material, this collaboration is producing free lesson plans and related educational materials for teachers who wish to introduce their students to complex ethical questions generated by the development and use of new scientific and medical innovations. Each episode will serve as a unique case study that explores bioethics principles and inspires lively discussions.
Listen to the Season Two trailer
Lesson Plans
Lesson Plans for Season One will be published throughout November 2024. Sign-up above to receive email notifications. Each episode will have its own Lesson Plan containing:
- Summary
- Important Terms
- Discussion Questions
- Suggested Activities
- Related Careers
- Suggested Readings
Season One Lesson Plans
Season One Show Guides
About playing god?
Life-and-death dilemmas. New medical technologies. Controversial treatments. In playing god? we hear from the patients whose lives were transformed—and sometimes saved—by medical innovations and the bioethicists who help guide complex decisions.
Ventilators can keep critically ill people alive, but when is it acceptable to turn the machines off? Organ transplants save lives but when demand outpaces supply how do we decide who gets them? Increasingly, novel reproductive technologies can help people have babies in ways that are far beyond what nature allows. So, when should such “Brave New World” technologies be introduced and who should control them?
playing god? is a podcast created by the Berman Institute of Bioethics. hosted by Lauren Arora Hutchinson, Director of the Berman’s Institute’s Dracopoulos-Bloomberg iDeas Lab; executive producers are Anna Mastroianni and Jeffrey Kahn, working closely with Amelia Hood.
Episodes of Season One of playing god?, made possible by generous support from The Greenwall Foundation, premiered each Tuesday from October 20 through December 12, 2023. Season Two will debut in early 2025.