Mixed Signals: Verifying Online Information

In this lesson, students examine two websites about unlikely animals and learn how to effectively evaluate online sources. They then create a fake website that demonstrates the misleading signals that are often mistakenly taken as signs of reliability.

New Brunswick - English Language Arts K

Strand: Interactions

Big Idea: Expression

Skill Descriptor:

Express feelings and opinions and give simple descriptions of experiences.

Achievement Indicators:

    Use descriptive language to express a feeling, opinion, or emotion

    Use new words to describe everyday events and personal experiences

    Use simple sentences and/or full thoughts

Health and science misinformation

Though health and science topics are subject to the same kinds of misinformation found everywhere, there are two types that are particularly common in these fields: denialism and snake oil.

Outcome Chart - Science - Grade 4

Strand:  A3. Applications, Connections and Contributions

Overall Expectations:

Demonstrate an understanding of the practical applications of science and technology, and of contributions to science and technology from people with diverse lived experiences.

Specific Expectations:

Outcome Chart - Nunavut - Social Studies 2

Strand: Nunavusiutit

Themes

A. Living in Our Community    
B. Working in Our Community    
C. Transportation and Communication in our Community
D. Current Events 

Overall Expectations:

8. the various means of communication used in the community and the needs that they serve (C)

Skills

Impact of Online Hate

Online hate can have an impact in three interconnected ways:

• the harm done to its targets, either from personal harassment or from online spaces being experienced as hostile;
• the risk that those who encounter it may be radicalized by it, becoming more sympathetic and possibly even active; and
• the effect that it has on the values and culture of the online spaces in which it happens.

Responses and Solutions in the Classroom

There are two main strategies for addressing online hate and cultures of hatred in the classroom: teaching youth to recognize and deconstruct it, and empowering them to intervene by answering back to it.

New Brunswick - English Language Arts 1

Strand: Interactions

Big Idea: Expression

Skill Descriptor:

Express feelings and opinions and give simple descriptions of experiences.

Achievement Indicators:

    Use descriptive language to express a feeling, opinion, or emotion

    Use simple sentences and/or full thoughts to make a point

Outcome Chart - Nunavut - ELA 4

Strand: Uqausiliriniq

Overall Expectations:

1. listen, speak, read, write, view and represent to access and explore prior knowledge and experiences of self and others.

Specific Expectations:

1.1.1 Compare own and others' understandings to reflect upon personal understandings

1.2.1 Connect new information and experiences with prior knowledge to construct meaning in different contexts

Outcome Chart – Nunavut - Social Studies 6

Strand: Nunavusiutit

Themes    

C. The Faces of Canada    
D. Current Events 

Overall Expectations:

13. the challenges and opportunities facing Canada as a multicultural nation

Specific Expectations:

Skills

6. choose research books appropriate for various purposes: dictionaries, encyclopedias, reference books and atlases

7. locate information by using key words, table of contents, index and glossary