Favourite Sports and Athletes: Introduction to Sports Media - Lesson
This lesson develops a beginning awareness by students of how they feel towards, and respond to, different sports, and how the media represents athletics.
$uper Bowl
The Super Bowl has long been seen as the “tent pole” of American consumer culture: an annual game that routinely pulls in viewers at a scale otherwise achieved only by one-off events like series finales and celebrity car chases. It actually drives sales of TVs: the Retail Advertising and Marketing Association reports that 2.5 million people plan to buy a new TV for the express purpose of watching the game, part of an overall $8.7 billion in Super Bowl-related consumer spending.
Violence in Sports
In this lesson, students explore the gratuitous use of violence in sports.
Online Gambling and Youth
This lesson looks at the ways in which online gambling draws in youth and increases the risk that they will become problem gamblers.
Gambling in the Media
This lesson looks at the increasing prominence of gambling in the media, particularly movies and television.
Sports Personalities in Advertising
In this lesson students explore the relationship between athletes and advertising through a number of different activities.
How to Talk To Your Kids About Body Image During the Olympic Games
In ancient times the Olympics were a time when all nations – all Greek nations, anyway – would put away their differences and compete in almost every human activity, from poetry to the ferocious no-rules wrestling event called pankration. Being the very best that humans could be was seen as the best way to honour the gods of Olympus. Though we’ve dropped the poetry and the blood sports, people watching the swimming or volleyball events might wonder if we're on the way to bringing back the ancient tradition of competing in the nude. Revealing outfits – like those designed by Lululemon for the Canadian beach volleyball team – may be practical for those events, but they also shine a light on how dressing for sports can make us feel about ourselves. After all, it's hard to feel good about your own body when you've just spent an hour watching the most perfect physiques in the world nearly naked.
Talking to Youth about Online Gambling
Research shows that only a third of parents have discussed gambling with their children, perhaps because parents are generally unaware of their kids’ participation in these sorts of activities. It’s important to talk about it, though: research has found that family members' views about gambling are a major influence on how likely youth are to gamble.
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.