Image Gap - Lesson
This lesson helps students understand how self-image can influence lifestyle choices.
Mirror Image - Lesson
In this lesson, students analyze their own body image and consider what they wish they could change.
Thinking Like a Tobacco Company: Grades 7-9 - Lesson
In this lesson, students learn how the tobacco industry targets the needs, wishes and desires of young people in order to sell cigarettes.
Truth or Money - Lesson
In this lesson, students explore how advertising leverage can lead to censorship of information about public health issues.
Gender and Tobacco - Lesson
In this lesson, students explore gender-related influences on smoking.
Tobacco Labels
In this lesson, students debate the effectiveness of health warning labels on tobacco products.
Viral marketing alert
Ads like the one above have been appearing in public transit systems in Ottawa, Toronto and other Ontario cities over the last month, supposedly promoting a drug called “Obay” which prevents teenagers from having their own thoughts, hopes and dreams. It's a classic example of viral marketing: an ad campaign that doesn't actually name the product or service being promoted, but rather tries to get people talking about it in the hopes that when the product is finally unveiled the effect will be greater than a traditional ad campaign could have managed.
Gambling - Overview
Young Canadians today are growing up in a culture where gambling is legal, easily accessible – especially online – and generally presented as harmless entertainment.
Tobacco, alcohol and cannabis
“Advertising has always sold anxiety, and it certainly sells anxiety to the young. It’s always telling them they’re losers unless they’re cool.” (Mark Crispin Miller, The Merchants of Cool, 2000)
Media Safety Tips: Teens
Two important ideas relating to teens are the imaginary audience and the personal fable. The imaginary audience makes them overestimate how much attention other people are paying to them. This makes them more self-conscious and leads them to think of privacy primarily in terms of impression management – trying to control how others see them. The personal fable makes teens see themselves as the main character of a story and, as a result, leads many to believe that bad things will simply not happen to them.