Resources for Teachers - Authenticating Information
CyberSense and Nonsense is the second online adventure of the three CyberPigs. In their first adventure, Privacy Playground, the pigs learn to protect their personal privacy online and to recognize Internet marketing ploys. This time, they explore the world of online chat rooms.
In this lesson, students apply the “5Ws of Cyberspace” to sources of information they find online. Assuming the role of a student researching a science project, students must authenticate the information in an online article about the artificial sweetener, aspartame.
Level: Grades 9-12
Duration: 60 minutes
This lesson plan was developed by MediaSmarts for Elections Canada.
Digital literacy is a vital tool for education, employment and economic participation, civic engagement, and even health and wellness. It reinforces existing inequalities based on socioeconomic status, ethnicity, education, immigration status and gender. Given the importance of digital literacy skills to under-represented populations, MediaSmarts and YWCA Canada have partnered to develop and deliver DigitalSmarts, a digital literacy skills program.
For more than a decade, MediaSmarts has been a leader in defining digital literacy in Canada. This is reflected in the elementary digital literacy framework we launched in 2015. The Use, Understand & Create framework is based on a holistic approach which recognizes that the different skills that make up digital literacy cannot be fully separated.