Brief overview

This situation consists of raising awareness among youth to make them responsible and confident in their consumer habits.

Area(s) of learning

• Ethics and Religious Culture
  Skill 1: Reflect on ethical matters
  Put a situation into context; compare points of view; compare one’s analysis of the situation with that of his/her peers; suggest possible options or actions; examine the effects of these options or actions on oneself, on others or on the situation

Explanation of the purpose of the instruction

The existence and usefulness of the Office de la protection du consommateur (OPC)

Expected results

Lead the students in learning about the laws that exist to protect consumers and make them aware of safe behaviours to adopt as buyers.

Role-playing exercise

The teacher asks the students about situations that may have happened to them (dissatisfaction with a product purchased, use of the warranty, etc.), then shows the video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hqL3tYscf0) to introduce the Office de la protection du consommateur. Then, he questions the students to see if they knew it existed.

Performance

Students break into teams of two to four people and the teacher distributes a role-playing exercise to each team (Appendix) (several teams can work on the same situation). The teacher briefly introduces the Section dedicated to consumers, Information per good or service tab of the Office de la protection du consommateur website (http://www.opc.gouv.qc.ca) and invites the students to visit it to solve their role-playing exercise. The teacher should specify that all of the answers can be found on the Office de la protection du consommateur website.
★ Please note that all of the role-playing exercises were developed based on themes contained in the Section dedicated to consumers.

Re-investment

As a group, each team presents its situation and the possible solutions that they have found on the OPC site. The teacher can add elements to the students’ answers, particularly using the Proposed Options document (Appendix).
Let’s go one step further…
The teacher can present the Six résolutions faciles pour devenir un consommateur plus averti presented by the OPC.
(http://www.opc.gouv.qc.ca/actualite/conseil/article/six-resolutions-faciles-pour-devenir-un-consommateur-plusaverti/#.VMk-ht6bzs0)

Requirements

This situation requires Internet access. It can be done either individually or as a team.

Material required

– Computers with Internet access
– Projector (or whiteboard)
– Appendix: Role-playing exercise
– Appendix: Proposed Options

Areas of evaluation

Ethics and Religious Culture: Detailed analysis of a situation from an ethical perspective; Evaluation of possible options or action to determine if they promote togetherness (C.1)
* The teacher is free to adapt each of the sections based on his/her group and the course of the situation