Buy Nothing Day Lesson Plan

Marketing & Consumerism

Level: Grades 7 - 12

Author: Matthew Johnson, Director of Education, MediaSmarts

media representationconsumer awareness

This lesson is part of USE, UNDERSTAND & ENGAGE: A Digital Media Literacy Framework for Canadian Schools.

Overview

In this lesson Buy Nothing Day is used as a jumping-off point to look at the role of consumerism in our lives and culture. Students learn the definition of consumerism and consider its benefits and drawbacks; as well as where and how they receive consumerist messages. Students list their own recent purchases and consider how many were needed as opposed to wanted. They are then introduced to Buy Nothing Day and discuss its purpose and merits. Finally, students imagine that Buy Nothing Day is a holiday on par with Christmas and plan either a pageant or television program to celebrate the event.

Learning Outcomes

Key concepts/big ideas:

After this lesson, students will understand:

  • Media have commercial implications: The media industry is driven by profit, which messages that encourage consumption.
  • Audiences negotiate meaning: Students recognize that their own backgrounds and values shape how they interpret "needs" versus "wants," and that different people may find different meanings in the same consumerist messages.
  • Media are constructions: Media works are results of specific choices made by creators to include or exclude certain information to communicate a particular message.

Essential knowledge:

In this lesson, students will learn:

  • Consumer Awareness: Young people are heavily advertised to across various media and have the power to talk back to or question these messages.
  • Media Representation: Buying products is presented as inherently "good" for society
  • Community Engagement: Movements like Buy Nothing Day can set a cultural agenda.

Performance tasks:

 In this lesson, students will demonstrate the ability to:

  • Access: Students will identify and categorize different media and platforms (such as billboards, TV ads, or product placements) where they encounter consumerist content
  • Understand: Students will critically evaluate commercial messages
  • Engage: Students will create and communicate using media forms to express themselves and participate in a dialogue about social activism and community values.

Student-facing goals: We will learn the definition of consumerism and talk about the positive and negative ways it affects our society. We will think about the constant shopping messages we see in our daily lives and if the things we buy are truly "needs" or just "wants". We will use our imagination to plan a deinfluencing campaign for Buy Nothing Day. 

This lesson and all associated documents (handouts, overheads, backgrounders) is available in an easy-print, pdf kit version.

Lesson Kit