Science Fact or Fiction
- September 14, 2020
- 3 minutes read - 513 words
Overview
There are a lot of fascinating and interesting “facts” or “scientific studies” that are shared around the internet. We commonly see them in articles, videos, or images; but how do you know if what you’re reading is actually true?
Materials
Projector, worksheets, laptops. Also formatted to work as a digital assignment or as a live online lesson via screen-sharing.
Preparation
Share worksheets with students (format should work with Google Docs)
Create a Padlet for each class
Resources
Pacing
Suggested Pacing
Day 1 – introduce worksheet & directions || work on Parts 1-3
Day 2 – share and discuss answers for Parts 2 and 3
Pacing w/ Teacher Notes
Day 1 - To introduce the topic, I talk about how the internet makes it easy to share information and I ask students if they have heard of any science misconceptions (school-appropriate). For example, they may have heard of “humans swallow ~8 spiders a year while they sleep” or that “it takes 7 years to digest gum.” These statements are intriguing and it can be hard to know if they’re actually true.
In Part 1, I ask them not to look up the statements and guess which ones are true and which are false. This should be done individually.
In Parts 2 and 3, I go over the example with them and they are allowed to work in small groups of 2-4 students to answer the questions. At this point, I haven’t gone over how to find reliable sources. I let them know that we will go over it and they may need to change or add to their answers when we review.
For online learning: Students can work on Parts 2 and 3 individually, then share their answers via Padlet. Sign up takes less than a minute via Google and I shared images of my template on the next page.
Students can post anonymously or sign up via their school email. The setup I used was “Shelf” and I duplicated the template for each of my classes.
Day 2 - Depending on your pacing and students, you may give them more time to finish Parts 2 and 3. If they are done, I give them an opportunity to talk to their group and share on the board or via Padlet. For the class review, I call on different groups to share their answers and I use the PowerPoint to guide our discussion.
At the end of Part 3, I share some strategies they can use to fact-check information or find credible sources when writing research papers. We discuss and highlight why some information may be biased or misleading. Based on student feedback, the most useful tips for them were how to reverse image search and search only for sites that end in .edu or .gov by typing in “site:edu” at the end of a Google search.
Credits: Inspired by David McCandless & other colleagues.
