Background
I am trying to make students familiarize with some some basic GIS procedures (using QGIS 2.18), like creating simple maps featuring points that represent the location of shops in a given area. I am making them use OSM as base map, which (if I am not mistaken) uses a Geographic Coordinate System (wgs1984).
Problem
I anticipate a problem when it will come to create buffers around those locations. The problem I envisage is related to the coordinate system used by the base map against which the point shapefile has been created.
Question
How to meaningfully create buffers when using a GCS? Is there a way to reproject the basemap to a projected coordinate system so that buffers will meaningfully employ metric units?