Home Economics Overview

Home Economics incorporates various media education themes, such as completing research, fostering human relationships, education about consumerism, and resource management.  In the Intermediate Level Home Economics Program: Overview and Organization, the Canadian Home Economics Association defines the subject as:

…concerned with all aspects of daily living, including human relationships and development, resource management, consumerism, foods and nutrition, clothing and textiles, housing and aesthetics. Home economics brings together knowledge from its own research, the sciences and the arts and uses this knowledge to assist people in enhancing their daily lives.[1]

The broad range of subject areas within the curriculum points to the fact that students will not focus too heavily on one aspect over another.  This helps them to learn a variety of information across multiple topics to “{gain] knowledge, insight and skills related to many perennial challenges of everyday life.” [2]

These challenges point to media education components for which resource links have been provided by MediaSmarts.  Specific resources relating to advertising as a subtopic of consumerism, as well as drug and alcohol education as a component of food and nutrition have been supplied.

On the sidebar, you can click on the grade level under the heading “Home Economics” in order to view and use the different MediaSmarts resources associated with the topics. (Note: as many of our lessons can be adapted to suit different grade levels, specific lessons may be listed for more than one grade.  Teachers should also note that individual lessons often satisfy several learning outcomes.)