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External Influences 3: Legal and Political - Lesson Plan: flexible timing

A series of 'off the shelf' lesson plans and resources for use in the classroom. These lessons deal with External Influences 3: Legal and Political and are relevant to the following specifications:

• AQA: Module 3, 12.3
• Edexcel: Unit 1, Section 4
• OCR: Module 2871

Aim:

The activity is a problem-solving task for students based around the issue of food labelling regulations and the potential impact on a company. There are clues given in the 'scenario' that should point students in certain directions in relation to the information provided from the Food Standards Agency Web site. Students will have to consider the cost implications, as well as investigate how changes to production techniques might have to be considered, given the regulations.

For example, will the production of 'Cornish' pasties have to be amended given that production is based in Northampton and not Cornwall? All the products given will be affected in some form or another - some more than others - and it is up to the students to consider the significance of the impact on the business. Some background information about the nature of the business is given to allow students to put the impact of the regulations into some form of context. The skill will come in being able to marry all the different aspects together - the firm has very slim margins, for example, and so it is possible that the re-organisation necessary to meet the changes could cut these even further.

The activity is designed to get students thinking about not only the nature of the impact, but also the extent to which companies can be affected by such regulation, thus encouraging them to develop further their analysis and evaluation skills. It may be worthwhile suggesting that, in this fictitious example, the regulations are new and that the company is not, as yet, meeting any of the standards.

Learning Objectives:

At the end of the lessons, students be able to:

• Understand the impact of regulation on business activity
• Present a coherent written report highlighting analysis and evaluation skills
• Bring together a variety of issues and to show an understanding of the relationship between different areas of the business
• Present a report in an appropriate format

Resources:

• PowerPoint Presentation - External Influences 3: Legal and Political [411 KB]
• Mind Map - External Influences 3: Legal and Political
• Activity - External Influences 3: Food Labelling

Lesson Structure:

1. Present the topic using the PowerPoint Presentation - discuss the key points and emphasise the implications for businesses. (20 minutes)
2. Give out the Activity and explain the scenario and the task - focus attention on the learning objectives for the Activity. (10 minutes)
3. Give students the opportunity of doing some background research on the issue of food labelling and regulation using the 'Related Web sites for Research'. (30 minutes)

Use another lesson or a homework to allow writing up of the report.