Break the Fake Lesson Plan: Hoax? Scholarly research? Personal opinion? You decide!
This lesson is designed to help students determine the validity of information that is presented to them on the internet.
Introduction to Online Community Engagement
Students often feel detached from the political arena, and this lesson plan we have designed is to help inspire curiosity and action with your secondary students due to the very real connection between early civic engagement and citizens that are active and engaged with politics for their lifetime.
Students are introduced to civic education through a series of activities which will ask them to work together to engage with their larger communities through curiosity, conversation and creation. Current events happening at the neighbourhood, municipal or federal level will act as starting points for each activity.
Break the Fake Tip #1: Use fact-checking tools
Sometimes a single search can Break the Fake if a professional fact-checker has already done the work for you.
Fighting misinformation: Why pausing before you share really works!
Two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, it is more clear than ever that dealing with the misinformation surrounding COVID-19 requires us to come at it from every possible angle. We have needed trusted voices to provide strong, clear and sharable counter-messaging on social media.
Saw some false info? Say something!
So, you saw some false info?
Whether the bad info you saw was a misunderstanding, an exaggeration, or even an outright lie, how you respond makes a difference.
Be part of the solution. Say something!
Wacky Media Songs: Community Engagement
This lesson series contains discussion topics and extension activities for teachers to integrate the TVOKids Original series Wacky Media Songs. This lesson focuses on students’ ability to influence positive social norms in online spaces and to speak out as active, engaged citizens.
Break the Fake: Critical thinking vs. disinformation
People who share false or misleading information sometimes use the language of critical thinking and media literacy, telling followers to “do your research” and “think critically” in one breath and then to “trust the plan” in the next. So how can we tell if we’re really thinking critically?
Break the Fake: Spotting hate propaganda
What do we mean by propaganda?
- Propaganda tries to get you to believe in an idea or to feel a certain way.
- Propaganda convinces you by provoking your emotions instead of making a logical argument.
Not all propaganda is bad! It can inspire positive emotions like love, pride and empathy. It can persuade us to do things like putting on seatbelts or brushing our teeth.
Hate propaganda is different: it tries to make us fear and distrust another group of people.