Brief Encounter

Shop manager – grouping products

Opportunities for Embracing Uncertainty

There is an infinite number of ways for shops to group their produce and yet they all typically use similar groupings. These will have been found to help customers source products as well as to maximise profits. Sustainability challenges require us all to think in new ways, including shop managers and their customers. This activity first engages students with the decisions that shop managers must make when sorting produce. It then encourages them to re-imagine possibilities for alternative groups that place a premium on sustainability. It invites everyone to reimagine possibilities.

Opportunities for All Students

This invitation is appropriate for students of all ages and focuses on both a familiar context (a shop) and grouping activity. For younger students, the classroom can be converted into a shop – using actual or pretend products made by themselves – to group. It might be useful to ask some students to think about a shop that they know well and to map it out, draw it or simply to imagine it in their mind’s eye. Some may need to look at images of shops on the internet or even to visit a shop either with teachers or family. This activity links to a curriculum focus on healthy living and eating. Many students can be encouraged to reflect on the complexity of different groupings (for both customers and managers) and possible messages that they convey.

Opportunities for Creative Thinking

There are numerous opportunities to develop creative and philosophical thinking through this invitation. Students may consider how habits of shopping are changing from the existing practices that we are used to, including where, when and how to shop. For example, shops where it is possible to refill packaging, online shopping sites, and the possible wider social and community implications of shopping (e.g. shopping in small local shops). They may explore tensions between the ethical and practical possibilities, for example.

Opportunities for Linking to Climate Justice

Students can share family shopping experiences, including what they buy and from where. Some may share other country shopping experiences, whether through visits or knowledge of extended family practices. How are foods grouped elsewhere (e.g. souks; animal markets; people selling from their homes)? Why might this be done differently? What varied messages may these practices convey? Students could also explore the concept of shopping without money, such as the Lewes pound (https://www.thelewespound.org/).

Deliberative Encounter

Engaging with the complexity of food purchases

Opportunities for Embracing Uncertainty

Placing students in a position of uncertainty that includes constraints is challenging and thought provoking. In this case, although they can choose anything at all they like, the constraint is that they can only spend a maximum of £4 per person. Students are encouraged to consider multiple ‘choice’ possibilities, including the ethical dimensions of shopping, and to come to a final decision that navigates the tensions between needs, desires, beliefs and cost. There is no easy way to do this.

We have become so used to the certainty of food availability, but this can change. It might be interesting to explore what the uncertainty of variety and quantity of food might look like in the future; its possible causes and implications, including possible ways to ensure greater food security locally.

Opportunities for All Students

The list of factors can be varied depending on the student group. The activity can be simplified for those groups who need it. For example, by removing the management of money (or else making this very simple) as well as limiting the factors that they might consider as a group.

Students could be asked to choose one factor (such as Workers’ standards or Buying local) in the list to create a concept cartoon: this is where four people offer different points of view all relating to the same theme, and the class then discuss the merits of each suggestion. To encourage deliberation, students can be asked to rank the four suggestions in the concept cartoon, from most to least important, and to discuss their rationale as they do so.

Some useful resources:

Food miles calculators: https://www.foodmiles.com/more.php

Book containing carbon footprint calculations of different products: https://profilebooks.com/work/how-bad-are-bananas/

Organisation supporting British food producers: https://redtractor.org.uk/

KS2 resource on plastic packaging: https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/zshp34j/articles/z6m7vk7

Organic foods: https://www.soilassociation.org/take-action/organic-living/what-is-organic/

Organisation promoting workers’ health, welfare and employment: Rainforest Alliance: https://www.rainforest-alliance.org/ and Fairtrade Foundation: https://www.fairtrade.org.uk/

Report on the affordability of healthy diets globally: https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/state-of-food-security-and-nutrition-in-the-world-2020

An example of global food logistics is the tanker that was stuck in the Suez Canal: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-56505413

Opportunities for Creative Thinking

Students engage in philosophical thinking by taking an everyday activity (shopping) and drawing out wider implications of how to live on a planet with limited resources (both financial and material). Students could be encouraged to consider the role of creative industries (advertising, social and other media, music, arts, books, etc.) on their shopping choices. To what extent, and in what ways, do they feel consciously or unconsciously persuaded? How might this be achieved? They are likely to have very different perspectives.

Opportunities for Linking to Climate Justice

This activity works particularly well with diversity: students must work as a group, taking account of the others’ needs, as well as their cultural and other preferences. Students might discuss cooking with raw ingredients and sharing family recipes. It gives scope to draw out global perspectives on food choices. This includes country of origin, boycotts and workers’ standards. This may draw attention to the sustainability tensions of importing foods (e.g. food miles and growing practices). What proportion of the products are from the UK? How many countries are represented in the food the shop sells? Are the food miles justified in some cases but not in others? Is genetic modification of food a good idea? Is there enough food to feed the whole world? A useful film for more advanced students on this last issue is The Paradox of Hunger in the World: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZRFrvmjfDs

Visual Encounter

The power of storytelling

Opportunities for Embracing Uncertainty

Advertising, like all creative industries, tells stories. Storytelling is inherently uncertain because how the story is read can vary widely. It can be powerful for students to place themselves in the position of the people creating an advertisement to consider how messages are created through words and images, for what purpose, and to what effect. The activity enables students to think more deeply about their own purchasing decisions, and how they might take up or resist the messages being promoted.

Opportunities for All Students

Some students can be invited to tell their own story from the advertisement images. They could also select an advertisement with which they are very familiar (e.g. associated with items from their lunchboxes) to tell a story. Consider using role play for the interview activity; try using hot seating (https://www.teachprimary.com/learning_resources/view/primary-resource-hotseating-in-drama) or De Bono’s hats (https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zxyxtyc/revision/11) for this too. For the latter, the person being interviewed can be placed in a position where they are expressing their thinking through six different ‘hat’ scenarios that tap into ‘knowledge’, ‘feelings’, ‘new ideas’ etc.

Opportunities for Creative Thinking

Students can explore the art of persuasion in society through different means. As well as advertising, this might include a focus on celebrities and social media influencers. They might also compare product advertising to the techniques used by politicians to persuade people to vote for them. Students might draw on their school council to think about how they aim to influence others, as well as talks, leaflets and canvassing. What do students feel is effective and why? They might extend discussions to think about how different stories are told about climate change, including those told by politicians, environmental campaigners and the media.

Opportunities for Linking to Climate Justice

When discussing the advertisements, the students can explore who is being targeted and whether the images or text appeals more to particular groups than others. Those from different cultural and language backgrounds can speak about how the image might say something different to them. Students could also share an example of advertising from different countries, cultures or times, and explore differences in approaches used: for example, is humour used differently?

Beyond the Classroom Encounter

Exploring what matters

Opportunities for Embracing Uncertainty

Through creating their own advertisements, students must think through what it is that matters to them and that they want to promote to others. This is complex and personal, and it requires justification, but there is no right or wrong answer. There is also no guarantee that their message will be heard or heeded. There might be unintended consequence that could be useful to consider when discussing designs, such as allegations of copying pre-existing brands or images; offending some people’s tastes or sensibilities; accusations of inappropriate age targeting; or audiences reacting to a perceived greenwashing, moralising or instructional tone.

Opportunities for All Students

Students of all ages can design or depict something that they value. Some may find it hard to think what will appeal to others when creating a design that also persuades others of the value of the product: they can be asked what matters to them about the product and how they have shown this in their design. They could ask each other to say what they think of it, and to consider how people have different thoughts and feelings. Some students may also find it challenging to consider their audience, but the activity is designed to draw their attention to this.

Opportunities for Creative Thinking

The themes that need to be considered when designing an advertisement are incredibly varied and promote creative and philosophical thinking. For example:

• What are the ethical issues encountered when deciding what to include/exclude in their advertisement?
• Is advertising ever ethical?
• How much of a product should an advertisement reveal?
• Should advertisements reveal possible health, wellbeing and environmental harms?

Opportunities for Linking to Climate Justice

This activity can prompt discussions about how the world of advertising not only varies across regions and countries but over time. Students might want to consider how global sustainability challenges have influenced current advertising, as well as how ‘nature’ has been used historically in advertising, and why. The activities allow students to surface how advertisements might ‘work’ (or not). They might consider the value of such work given the advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) and why knowing sources, their intentions and methods becomes important.