About This Lesson
OVERVIEW
Since 1995, the Denver airport has been a focal point for conspiracy theorists — murals with encoded messages, a giant blue horse statue with glowing eyes and massive underground bunkers to house elites during a planned apocalypse. Students will learn how to debunk a conspiracy theory using the Stanford History Education Group’s “Three Questions”:
- Who is behind the information?
- What is the evidence?
- What do other sources say?
These lessons were developed by PBS NewsHour Student Reporting Labs in partnership with MediaWise and the Teen Fact-Checking Network, which are part of the Poynter Institute. This partnership has been made possible with support from Google.
OBJECTIVES
Students will be able to:
- Define zombie claim.
- Use lateral reading to research a source and the evidence of a claim.
SUBJECTS
media literacy, social studies, language arts, journalism
ESTIMATED TIME
45 minutes
