The Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Wyoming’s ‘Be Somebody: Cowboy Ethics’ program has partnered with the Natrona County School District’s financial literacy classes at both high schools, as well as with the Better Business Bureau of Northern Colorado and Wyoming to offer a course where students can earn a Character Ethics Certification.  Through a variety of ‘Be Somebody: Cowboy Ethics’ lessons, activities, and discussions, students take the Ten Principles in the Code of the West and begin to understand how it applies to their daily lives.

This past fall semester, 112 juniors and seniors at Kelly Walsh High School enrolled in financial literacy classes to meet the requirement for financial literacy and civic responsibility. To help meet the civic responsibility portion of the requirement, students partake in ‘Be Somebody: Cowboy Ethics’ lessons, complete a portfolio, and then present a final project on what the Code of the West has taught them. Students also go through a set of video modules from the BBB’s Center for Character Ethics where scenarios are played out and ethical decisions must be made. Based on the decision made by the students utilizing their knowledge of the Ten Principles of the Code of the West, another randomized scenario plays out. Excellent discussion and short assignments, which are included in their portfolio, accompany these video modules.  Once students have completed all portions of the program, they then earn a Character Ethics Certification.

To find out what the students are saying about Be Somebody:Cowboy Ethics classes, click here.

This year marks the beginning of our fifth year of partnership with business classes in Natrona County School District and our second year of offering the Character Ethics Certification course.  The goal for this partnership has always been for students to decide for themselves what they believe, why they believe it, and how they are going to show it. As evident in these two examples of final projects, students are taking the Ten Principles of the Code of the West and making it their own, living out their own code, and becoming role models in our community.