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Research
Fact Checking the News

	Unit Description Objectives Materials and Resources Unit Lesson Plans Relation to Standards One Computer versus Many

• Grade level: Middle School, High School

• Subject Area: Social Studies, Math

Unit Description

    As part of their social science work, students will monitor current events via on-line and traditional resources. Periodically, students will choose a news article to critically examine using statistical resources available on the Web.
Objectives

    Students will:

• Use multiple resources to gather information for research.
• Critically evaluate the content and perspective of news stories.
• Use data to make inferences and support arguments.
• Use data to evaluate other people's arguments.

Materials and Resources

    In developing our lessons and activities, we made some assumptions about the hardware and software that would be available in the classroom for teachers who visit the LETSNet Website. We assume that teachers using our Internet-based lessons or activities have a computer with the necessary hardware components (mouse, keyboard, and monitor) as well as a World Wide Web browser. In the section below, we specify any "special" hardware or software requirements for a lesson or activity (in addition to those described above) and the level of Internet access required to do the activity.

1. Special hardware requirements: None.
2. Special software requirements: None.
3. Internet access: A medium-speed or higher connection.

Unit Lesson Plans

1. Lesson One: Current Events Research. Students monitor current events using on-line and traditional resources.

2. Lesson Two: Fact Checking. Students choose a news article to analyze using on-line statistical resources.

Relation to Standards

    The Fact Checking the News Unit addresses social studies standards outlined by the National Council for the Social Studies and math standards outlined by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.
One Computer versus Many

    The plans for this unit are tailored to fit teaching situations where students have access to several computers with an Internet connection. To accommodate classrooms that do not have access to a computer lab with full Internet connections, students can work in research groups to explore Internet sites and conduct their research.

    If you have only one computer with Internet access, you may choose to do one of the following:

• If you have the technology, you may hook up the computer to a TV monitor or LCD projector. This will allow the whole class to see sites in the preliminary stages when students are exploring sites created by other children.

• You may choose to have students take turns working in groups using the computer with Internet access.

• You may also download files from the Internet and save them on a disk. Now you can transfer the files you saved on a disk to the other non-Internet computers. Installing copies of your Web browser on all non-Internet computers will allow you to view the pages you saved to a disk. This will not allow students to explore hyper-links, but they will be able to access and view the information by opening each file with the Web browser.

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