Symbols and Cartoons

This lesson can be linked to Sunshine Textbook Program 5.

Summary

Most students are aware of the eko-mark from the Japan Environment Association. There are many other symbols that students should know to be able to recognize positive environmental practice. As consumers, we have a lot of power over the market depending on what we choose to buy. If enough people refuse to buy certain products based on their negative environmental impact, these products will eventually stop being sold. Students need to understand their power as a consumer and make conscious decisions to use it in a positive way. Cartoons used for the second half of the lesson are meant to stimulate ideas from students - pictures are always easier to understand than words. The ideas are rather simplistic, but they can be developed more in a class discussion.

Level: *

Grammar

• "The symbol looks like ..."
• "I think this picture means ..."

Materials

The Symbols and Cartoons Worksheet, other environmental symbols.

Procedure

1. Handout the worksheet to students. Allow them to work in pairs.
2. Let them have 10 minutes to finish questions 1 and 2.
3. Go over them together to find the correct answers.
4. Give students 15 minutes to answer the questions on the four pictures (if there is not enough time, assign different pictures to different pairs).
5. Some students read their answers to the class and the teacher facilitates a class discussion regarding the pictures.

Picture Interpretations

Picture 1

The woman is likely Taro's mother and the man his father. The woman has ordered a new bike for her son and is calling him to see what the delivery truck has brought. The man, on the other hand, is repairing an old bike for his son to use. Taro should take the bike that is being fixed, making it unnecessary to buy a brand new bike.

Picture 2

The first boy lives in Japan and he has become very accustomed to material goods. In fact, he has so many toys he can't play with them all. The second boy lives in an African country. He is very poor and doesn't even have enough to dress or feed himself. There are many messages in these cartoons, most importantly that we need a better way to divide wealth and material goods. It's not fair that the Japanese boy has so much, while the African boy has so little.

Picture 3

The room in the cartoon is a kitchen. The first woman is likely the mother of the two boys and the second woman is perhaps her friend. She is surprised to see that the kitchen is full of canned and instant food instead of fresh meat and vegetables. The boys look sad because they are tired of eating processed food and aren't receiving the proper nutrition they need to help them grow into healthy men.

Picture 4

Paper cups and cans are lying around the vending machine creating a lot of litter. The man's job is to examine the health of the environment. The "person" sitting opposite to him is a sickly looking map of Japan. The message of this cartoon is that Japan is sick because we haven't taken care of the environment.

Acknowledgements

Contributed by Anne Thompson, ALT.