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The Story of Bottled Water (Media: Two Perspectives)

SUBJECTS Language Arts, Media
GRADE LEVEL Intermediate (7-8)
PLEDGE 3 - Plastic Harm to Water

Introduction:

  1. Ask students, What do you know about bottled water? Where do you think the idea of bottled water came from? What are the pros and cons of bottled water? Who advocates for/against bottled water?
  2. Introduce and discuss the concepts of interest and how they may play out in the politics and economics of bottled water.

Lesson:

  1. Show the video, The Story of Bottled Water.
  2. Ask students what they think are the main ideas of The Story of Bottled Water. You may want to re-play the video so that students can jot down notes, numbers and questions. Ask students what the central message is.
  3. Ask students to read the two articles that represent differing sides of the bottled water issue. After, lead a class discussion about the main idea/message and perspective behind each article.
  4. Ask students to work alone or in pairs to identify ten key words that advance the main idea/message from one of the articles, ensuring equal coverage of both articles. Also ask students to think about why that word is used and how it strengthens the message(s) and bias in the article.
  5. Create a class graphic: Two Sides of Bottled Water with key words and reported information from the two articles posted along each side.

Follow Up Activities:

1. In small groups, have students create a verbal advertisement that might be created by either the pro- or against- bottled water for teenagers, in order to persuade them to drink more bottled water or not drink bottled water.