This lesson helps students understand the relationship between body image and marketing by exploring Aerie and Dove’s body positive advertising campaigns. Students begin by reading about the impact that body positive advertising campaigns have on companies, as well as on their consumers. Students will then look at body positive ads aimed towards men and read research about how there is a lack of representation in this field. They will then deconstruct a series of traditional ads compared to body positive ones and discuss how marketers target "ideal beauty" messages to both men and women and whether they are effective. Finally, students will evaluate whether body positive ads are effective in general or not through discussion.

In this lesson students explore gender roles in advertising by taking an ad campaign they have seen which is specifically directed to one gender, and redesigning the campaign to target the opposite gender.

This activity helps teenagers develop an awareness of marketing tactics aimed at teens.

In this lesson students learn about the history of blackface and other examples of majority-group actors playing minority-group characters such as White actors playing Asian and Aboriginal characters and non-disabled actors playing disabled characters.

In this lesson, students debate the effectiveness of health warning labels on tobacco products.

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.

Lessons on Media and Global Development for Grades 7-12

This lesson allows students to explore the concepts of rules, values and ethics and learn how they influence our decision-making. Students are then invited to consider how they can contribute to create positive online cultures.

To introduce students to the rating systems for films, videos and television and to the issues that surround these classifications.

To introduce students to the use and prevalence of sexuality in advertising.