Alan has just started People as Consumers on the Pilot course, he has talked about Consumer Landscapes, the Earthcam Webcam Network has a range of good live webcams that could provide a simple introduction to this topic. How about viewing two separate locations and getting students to discuss the advertisements and landscape features that are similar or dissimilar in both locations?

A quick viewing of the New York cams provided these examples

TGI Fridays, Kodak, Coca-Cola, HSBC, Swatch, Mc Donalds

Obviously all these companies are Multi-Nationals/Trans-National Corporations, but we can also discuss the use of advertisements and how they dominant space, and the reason for this, the traffic volume, the flow/number of people and the environmental quality of the area.

There is also an opportunity to show the globalisation of shopping here, by comparing the landscape with one in another country, it could also be used to tackle stereotypes, by comparing a Consumer Landscape in an LEDC country.

One of my favourite live-streaming webcams is this High Street in Amsterdam, this is great because you can control the cam, effectively you can follow people, very Big Brother .  But a great discussion of Consumer Landscapes can be had here, pedestrianisation, use of heritage, shop frontages, trams, types of companies represented, which online thinking has sorted a Year 8 lesson as well.

1 comment
Posted in Teaching Ideas
Written on Mon, 02 April 2007 at 9:23 am

If you liked this post, then consider subscribing to our full RSS feed.