Media Education Unit Plan
Media Unit Plan : Food, Nutrition and Advertising
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Demographics:
The school I see my self teaching this lesson plan is at Good Shepherd Elementary in the city of Brossard. This school is located in the suburbs not so rural, but it is away from downtown Montreal and across the bridge to the South shore. This is a public school that has all grade levels starting from kindergarten to grade six. Good Shepherd Elementary is an English school, but also has some classes being taught in French immersion. This school also has a uniform the children have to wear either blue pants or a blue skirt with a white t-shirt at all times. This is a medium size school and currently holds 775 students. The schools is close by and many children do walk to school and also there is a bus system for the children that live further away that is covered in the school’s district. This school has many facilities it has its own library that has varieties of books and also has five-six computers. The school also has a computer lab that has 34 dell computers that are only couple of years old. The school also has it own cafeteria that is used daily in the mornings and at lunch time. Good Shepherd Elementary also has a day care system where parents can drop off their children early in the morning or pick them up late in the evening. The day care service starts from 7a.m. before classes and after end of classes until 6 p.m.
These children that go to Good Shepherd Elementary will be coming from working families that are either from lower middle class or middle working classes. Most of these children will be second generation immigrants. These students will have various backgrounds, Chinese, Indian, Pakistani, Arabs, Bangladeshi, Italian and Greeks. The smaller population of these students will be either Irish background or Quebecois. Each of these children will all have different religious backgrounds. Many of the children that will be attending Good Shepherd Elementary school will be coming from two parent families, but there is a rising trend that many of these students will be coming from single parent families.
The grade I will be teaching is grade six. The age of these children will be either eleven or twelve. The class it self will have around 18 to 24 children. This class will have more or less have the same amount of girls and boys. There will be two computers available in the classroom. The class room will be set up where the children will be sitting together in groups of four. Everyone will be facing forward and no students back will be towards the teachers. The class room is well equipped with other devices such as projector and also can be accessible to TV, DVD, and VCR. All of these students will have internet that is accessible to them at home.
Rationale:
I have chosen to do my topic on food and basically why it is important to us and how we are influenced my commercialism and advertisement on TV about fast food and living healthy. I think it is really important that we incorporate this topic in our class room because children should know what they are eating and if it is good for their health or is it risky. There has been numerous researches done showing the effect of food has on our brain. We need our children in the class room using their full capacity of the brain when they are learning. Research has shown that if we change our diet there are viable strategy for enhancing cognitive abilities. There has been a research that shows that children that increased the omega 3 fatty acids in their diet performed better in school, in reading, and spelling and had fewer behaviour problems.
The unit about food is very general, but the lesson plans will dedicate time to explain things in much detail. We will go over the Canada Health Food Guide and see if we are following it or not and how we can improve our diets. We will learn more about nutritional value of food and learn to categorize which food belongs in the health group and which does not. We will also examine how certain food group help develop what part of the body more. For example milk helps one grow stronger teeth and bones. We will examine ads and how big corporation such as MacDonald get us to reel in to buying foods when we are watching TV or reading magazine. When one sees pictures of a ham burger or chicken sandwich people suddenly really want to have it and eat it. Once you buy it even though it does not quite look like the same thing on TV or magazine you gulp it down regardless of how it looks. We will try to understand how these corporation reel us in. We will learn more about the fast-food advertising and how photographers can make the food look very appealing and picture perfect. We will learn the real facts that these photographers when they are taking pictures they are glazing and painting the uncooked burgers with brown coloring and oil. How they pick the center slices of tomatoes because they are the best looking and they mist it with water and glycerine to keep it fresh looking.
I also want to teach how the media target kids and how they want them to buy certain things and how they lower them in with toys. How many cereal companies lower kids with toys and jingles. I want the children to understand how these advertisements can change their food choices. I want them to critique from the advertisement point of view and if they were to sell products toward younger children how would they go about it. Another activity the children really should see is how much these advertisement appear on TV. I want the students to understand who advertiser are targeting and how many time to these ads re-appear on TV. I also want the children to also critique how many times does healthy eating ads come up has their been any public announcement on healthy living such as milk.
I Also want the children to learn about the North American nature of fast food and how it leads to obesity. How our new culture involves us to supersize everything and the customer actually thinks he or she is getting real value for their money, but does not know that he is putting his health in risk. Student will also understand our bodies do not need that great amount of calories we in fact eat more then what we really need on daily basis .
The whole purpose of this food unit is to help the students learn the true reality of the media and how they have their own special strategies and tactic to lower people in. I want the students to understand the healthy way of living and understand what food is good for them and what is not. I think that showing the big scam of big companies like MacDonald will help discourage children from eating at those places. I want them to understand the nutritional value of good source of food and how they are beneficial for the body. I want them to understand how these big corporation uses advertisement techniques to target audience. Children today have access to internet and watch TV, and movies they have to know how to face ads that come up on daily basis without being pulled in. I want my pupils to make healthy choices daily and truly understand from the lecture on nutritional value and what every growing body needs. The students are expected to perform their work of grade six level.
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