The purpose of this lesson plan is to show participants how digital content can be misleading and how it can influence regular and financial decisions. Participants learn to recognize common forms of misleading content and use a simple strategy to consider the source, purpose, clues, and evidence before believing, sharing or acting on information. The lesson emphasizes verifying information through trustworthy sources and developing media literacy skills to make informed decisions.
The vocabulary activity is broken out by introductory and advanced level, and uses vocabulary words for puzzles. The anticipatory set, Two Truths and a Trick has students determining if a headline is definitely real, possibly real or definitely fake. The facilitation introduces the S.T.O.P. acronym: source, think, observe, and prove. These can be applied to what you will encounter: AI-generated content, influencers, fake reviews, scams, and algorithms. The conclusion activity options are News Scenarios or S.T.O.P. the Scam Scenarios, and the assessment is an activity using the Federal Trade Commission website to teach peers, called Help Others Avoid Being Scammed.
Cross-curricular keyword: ELA
