Reflecting On Values in Technological Innovation Through Science Fiction Narrative Mapping

This practice paper explains how educators can use Sci-Fi narrative mapping to foster ethical reflection about values in technological innovations. The paper proposes Sci-Fi narrative mapping as a novel educational method combining embodied approaches with creative writing and group work. The paper explains how to deploy this method in an engineering ethics classroom and illustrates how this method was applied in two distinctive workshops – one with students and one with educators – and discusses the outcomes of the two workshops. The paper tackles the educational goals of this method, the theoretical background on which it relies, the limitations experienced thus far, the lessons learned from the two workshops, and possible extensions to other humanistic-informed courses in engineering education.