The Ontario Canadian and World Studies curriculum covers topics that pertain to media education. The Canadian and world studies program encompasses five subjects: economics, geography, history, law, and politics; all subjects that encompass media education themes. The grade eleven and twelve curriculum document, Canadian and World Studies, include the following goal:
In Ontario, media components are included throughout the Healthy Active Living Education curriculum, especially within the Substance Use and Abuse and Living Skills Strand:
The Ontario social sciences curriculum includes expectations that incorporate media education themes. The grade curriculum document Social Sciences and Humanities (2013) includes a section that demonstrates the complementary relationship between the critical thinking approach of media education and social sciences:
The Northwest Territories has a single curriculum for kindergarten that is based on play-based learning as outlined in the document NWT Right from the Start: Early Childhood Development Framework and Action Plan.
Outcome Chart - Ontario - Working With Infants and Young Children 11 HPW3C
General Learning Outcome:
GLO 1.1: Describe and apply appropriate health and safety practices
Specific Learning Outcomes:
SLO 11A.1.1.1 Describe and practice online safety.
I probably could, and maybe should, write about all of the social media changes we are seeing. The troubling updates to Meta’s content moderation policies and the removal of their fact-checking program, the complicated TikTok ban in the US, all of it.
GCO 1: explore, challenge, develop and express ideas using the skills, language, techniques and processes of the arts
CM 1.2 assess and utilize the properties of various art media and their ability to convey intended meaning
CM 1.3 create a variety of interrelated artworks on themes found through direct observation, personal experience, and imagination
Overall Expectations:
GCO 3: Students will be expected to demonstrate critical awareness of and the value for the role of the arts in creating and reflecting culture
Specific Expectations:
While parents may find certain representations of violence wholly appropriate for young people, there’s a wide continuum of content that exists online and in the media. Anything from a cartoon cat having an anvil comically dropped on his head to video images of real-life injuries and deaths can be accessed online by children and youth.