Empowering Global Citizens

Overview

In this unit, students see the school as a potential market for their chocolate.
Students observe their own school cafeteria, taking note of the products that
are sold there and the various forms of product differentiation. Students may
also test prototypes of the chocolate they’ve produced and give our samples
in the school so that other students can provide them with feedback. They
extend this further to an examination of schools and school life in different
parts of the world. Students also examine some of the motivations behind
attending school and explore trends related to, for example, school enroll—
ment and dropout rates.

Activity 3.5.1

The School as a Market and Testing My Prototype

The students take a tour of their school and their cafeteria and are asked to
take field notes and to interview students buying goods from the vending
machines and the cafeteria. Alternatively, students can create samples of dif—
ferent kinds of chocolates in their school kitchen and then use their school
cafeteria as a site in which to get feedback on their products. Students can
collect and collate data and learn to take polls and to organize their data in
percentages. (Note that these concepts can be linked with the math curricu—
lum at this stage.) Based on the data they’ve collected, they will answer the
following questions in their teams and then present their analyses to the class:

1. What goods and candy did they find in their school vending ma—
chines and cafeteria?

2. Do these products look the same as they do in regular markets?
What is different or similar? (For example, are there packages or
contents different?) What might be the reasons for these similarities
and differences?

3. Why do they think people purchase more of one type of product
than another? What attracts them to a product?

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