Looking At Food Advertising - Lesson
This lesson introduces students to the ways in which advertising can affect their food choices.
Marketing to Teens: Gotta Have It!
In this lesson students identify how we associate social status with brand name products, and how we believe others perceive us by what we wear. Students will also explore the notion of “brand identity” and how companies use social networks, and advertising strategies to create parasocial relationships with their consumers. To assess their learning, students then independently analyze the identity of a brand of their choice and create a mock ad that more openly communicates its implicit appeal.
I Heard It ‘Round the Internet: Sexual health education and authenticating online information - Lesson
Students will consider the use of the Internet as a research tool and learn how to use search engines more effectively. They then apply these new found skills to investigating popular myths about sexuality and contraception.
Looks Good Enough to Eat
This lesson looks at food photography and the different techniques used by food stylists to make foods look appealing in advertisements.
Buy Nothing Day
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.
Image Gap - Lesson
This lesson helps students understand how self-image can influence lifestyle choices.
What do Halloween costumes say?
This activity, adaptable across grades, is designed to help students look critically at the Halloween costumes marketed to them.
The Price of Happiness - Lesson
In this lesson students answer a brief questionnaire related to self-image, self-esteem, and advertising, and then work as groups to create and act in mock television commercials that parody advertising techniques.
The Anatomy of Cool - Lesson
This lesson helps students become more aware of the media's role in determining what, and who, are perceived as being cool.
The Privacy Dilemma
In this lesson students learn the ways that the apps they use are designed to encourage them to share more information—both with other users and with the apps themselves. They are then introduced to the idea of persuasive design or “dark patterns” and investigate whether these are used to make it more difficult to opt out of data collection on popular apps. Finally, the class creates a “rogues’ gallery” to help them identify dark patterns when they encounter them.