Level: Grades 6 to 8

Author: Media Literacy for Development & Children’s Rights, UNICEF Canada. Used with permission. For more teaching and lesson ideas for global education from around the world, visit UNICEF Canada’s Global Schoolhouse at www.unicef.ca.

“Children are immersed daily in a dense bath of mass media images and messages. Some teach children about the world around them. Others promote deceptive, partial, stereotypical and sometimes harmful perceptions.”

Edunotes, Issue 2 Volume 3
UNICEF Canada

“Media Literacy for Development & Children’s Rights” was created by UNICEF Canada to help young people in grades 6 - 8 understand the role played by the media in influencing their attitudes and perceptions about developing nations and development issues. This module contains a series of lessons, exercises and background information to help familiarize students with the issues and challenges surrounding representation of other countries and cultures by the media. The module includes:

• Activity One: Looking Through the Lenses
• Activity Two: Whose Lenses? How Mass Media Portray Global Development
• Activity Three: Adjusting the Focus

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