Lesson Plan

Teacher:

Date:

Subject / grade level: Standard Eighth Grade Science Class

Materials:

Essential Questions:

  • What makes information credible?
  • What is bias and how does it affect your search for information?
  • How do you optimize your search for information?

Lesson objective(s):

Students will search for relevant and valid online resources for a better understanding of credible information

Aligned Standards:

  • Maryland Technology Literacy Standards for Students
    • Grade 8
      • Standard 5.0 – Technology for Information Use and Management: Use technology to locate, evaluate, gather, and organize information and data.
        • A. Locate, Evaluate, and Gather Information
          • 1.Select and use information resources available through technology
            • a) Select relevant information from appropriate technology resources
            • b) Select and read to gain information from electronic personal interest materials, such as brochures, books, magazines, cookbooks, websites, and other online materials
            • c) Apply evaluation strategies when using electronic resources (such as publication/copyright date, fact vs. fiction, source, credibility, ease of use)
            • e) Refine search strategies for Web search engines/ directories

ENGAGEMENT

  1. Show an emotional advertisement about animal shelters.
  2. Ask students what emotions are elicited from the advertisement.
  3. Have students go to www.thedogisland.com. Ask them if the website is a good solution to the problem of abused and stray pets.
  4. Lead discussion into an analysis of the site and its legitimacy. Discuss the tricks the website creator used to mislead viewers.

EXPLORATION

Introduction: Pose the story line, “The U.N. is looking for student feedback on a critical issue. They are looking for websites to inform people about global warming prior to an international conference.”

  1. Have student formulate questions they have about global warming.
  2. Create a class list of questions.
  3. Students work in groups of 3-4 and pick three questions from the class list.
  4. They are to search for relevant sites to answer the questions. (ex. “What causes global warming?” or “What legislation has been passed concerning global warming?”)
  5. Meet back as a class and create a class list of websites on the topic that were used to answer the questions.

EXPLANATION

  1. Review the sites that are most credible.
  2. Have students create a criteria list for judging which sites are most reliable.

ELABORATION

  1. Create a list of sites by using the criteria created by the students.
  2. Students will pick a favorite website according to the criteria.
  3. They will pair with a peer who will critique the choice using the class criteria.
  4. The students will add their sites to a class database on a website.

EVALUATION

  1. The class will engage in a Socratic Seminar on sites included in the list and the order the sites should appear.