McDonalds as a case study for Pilot GCSE People as Consumers

(McDonalds is a trademark of the McDonalds corporation, as are various other trademarks. If there are any corporate lawyers watching who object to anything here, let me know and I'll remove it, although I would have thought McDonalds would pay big money to get such exposure in schools.....)

McDonalds is a company which has had a lot of bad press. It has been blamed for a lot of things. This webpage is not an attempt to continue that trend, or to whole-heartedly present the opposing view. Rather it is an attempt to suggest ways of using McDonalds as a framework for the Pilot GCSE Geography People as Consumers topic in such a way as to cover both sides of the story.

A search for materials and links for the Pilot GCSE course has thrown up a lot of great websites and materials which I shall be using here in some shape or form. Some of them are supportive of the company, and clearly the company does have a lot of positives, not the least providing a place for people to eat at a reasonable price, and employment for others. I have also had my moments of pulling alongside the McDrive window and getting 2 Happy Meals with Fruit Shoot...

Jamie Oliver's recent school dinner campaign opened up the issue of the nation's food, especially that served to children, and this is also the subject of a forthcoming book by Joanna Blythman. It is an issue which has a lot of mileage in schools, although there is obviously a potential issue with 'advertising' a particular company's products. McDonalds for example produce a teaching pack which has a lot of references to McDonalds (as one would expect) in the sort of situation which the Simpsons always send up rather nicely.

Interesting aspect of this, which also relates to the CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY aspect of the course is the role of advertising. This is something which I am going to develop further as we are likely to teach this unit from September 2007.

WEBLINKS TO SUPPORT THIS TOPIC

http://mcchronicles.blogspot.com/ - chronicling the McDonalds experience from the customers' point of view

http://www.filetofish.com/GCM/index.html - named after a McDonalds meal

http://www.squidoo.com/browse/show/McDonaldsCorp#module1354051 - a site produced by someone who works for McDonalds which has some fascinating links.

http://www.ciw-online.org/schlossernyt.html - article by Eric Schlosser

http://www.mcspotlight.org/ - keeping an eye on McDonalds in the UK - details of the McLibel trial too

http://www.chewonthisbook.co.uk - site related to children's version of Eric's book 'Fast Food Nation', which is also now a film. This is a great site to visit, as it has teachers' notes and lots of other materials. There is also a PUFFIN microsite which duplicates the material related to the book. Recommended, as is the book, which is a slimmed down version of FAST FOOD NATION (buy one or both of them !)

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/longisland/ny-lival0215,0,4234686.story?coll=ny-li-bigpix - newspaper story on couple who got married at McDonalds

OTHER RESOURCES

I had a quick look at various other online sources and managed to find a whole host of interesting materials from sites such as YouTube, Flickr etc.

There was also an interesting feature on Newsnight where Eric Schlosser was interviewed along with a representative of McDonalds. This was available on the BBC website, and could still perhaps be available. Some ideas relating to this will be included here shortly....

http://transmote.com/projects/dfuse/mcd.html - 22Mb download - any ideas on saving this ? - other resources available too

McDonalds have launched a website where they are keen to let you make up your own mind about McDonalds - check out what they have to say by clicking the link:

http://www.makeupyourownmind.co.uk/?rfrshd=1

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/foo_mcd_res-food-mcdonalds-restaurants - a useful page with details on restaurants around the world - could use this information

Also check out GEOGRAPHY MATTERS 1 : this textbook (and associated materials) has an enquiry on locating a fast food restaurant with useful mapping.

Could also do GOOGLE EARTH tour and tracking ingredients for Chicken McNuggets or some such food to the store... (Thanks to TC for that idea!)