Library of Congress
The Conservation Movement at a Crossroads: The Hetch Hetchy Controversy
Should wilderness areas be preserved or managed? Class members examine primary source documents, including lecture notes, articles, essays and congressional records to better understand the Hetch Hetchy controversy that created a split...
Stanford University
Lunchroom Fight II
To determine who should be suspended for a lunchroom fight, groups must source, contextualize, and corroborate the testimonies of various participants and witnesses.
Curated OER
Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice: The Novel as Historical Source
Students examine historical fiction as historical sources. In this historical fiction lesson, students analyze excerpts from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice as well as Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman in order...
Southern Poverty Law Center
Analyzing How Words Communicate Bias
Words are powerful ... can your class choose them wisely? Scholars evaluate news articles to discover the concepts of tone, charge, and bias during a media literacy lesson. The resource focuses on recognizing implicit information and...
Curated OER
How to Locate and Evaluate Information, Part I - Online Catalog
Using the online catalog, researchers locate and record on a citation template specific sources for their research paper. A library specialist models searching strategies while the teacher introduces the research paper process. Daily...
Nemours KidsHealth
Media Literacy and Health: Grades 9-12
An essential skill for 21st-century learners is to know how to find reliable sources of information. Two activities help high schoolers learn how to determine the reliability of health-related news from websites, TV, magazines, or...
Curated OER
How are People Portrayed by Different Media?
Your 9th - 12th graders can hone their analysis and critical thinking skills by studying the way a subject is portrayed across media types. They examine how various print, visual, and online sources have portrayed key players in the 9/11...
Curated OER
Library Orientation
Quidditch anyone? Here's a fun way to introduce your class to the resources available in the library as well as on the Internet. Researchers create an outline of the sources they locate about Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling, quidditch, and...
Curated OER
Intoxication: In the Arms of Morpheus
A comprehensive lesson that takes a look at psychoactive plants with this one focusing on the opium poppy. Information about the history, culture, use, source and effects are discussed. There are weblinks to reliable sources about drugs...
US Environmental Protection Agency
Protecting Your Drinking Water
Having a clean, reliable source of drinking water is essential for any community, but in many cases this is easier said than done. Engage young environmentalists in exploring the five factors affecting vulnerability of a groundwater...
Maryland Department of Education
The Concept of Diversity in World Literature Lesson 3: Igbo Culture
What cultural concepts must readers understand in order to connect to Things Fall Apart? As part of their study of Chinua Achebe’s novel, class members research Nigeria and the Igbo culture to create a collaborative, web-based, annotated...
EngageNY
Further Research: Local Sustainable Food Chain
Researchers review how to create citations, find reliable sources, and paraphrase. Next, using guided task cards and their researcher's notebooks, they investigate the question they developed in instructional activity eight about the...
Curated OER
Is Social Media a Trustworthy News Outlet?
Examine the role of social media in social and political uprisings. Pupils listen to NPR audio clips about social media and the Arab Spring and read an article that proposes the idea that revolution will not happen through social media....
Mr. Roughton
The Travels of Marco Polo
Were the stories of Marco Polo's travels and interactions with the Mongols actually true? Using an excerpt from the book The Travels of Marco Polo, your young historians will answer guiding questions to discuss the accuracy and...
Newseum
Slanted Facts and Slippery Numbers
The Internet is known as the information superhighway, but sometimes it's hard to know when to hit the brakes on unreliable sources. Using a well-rounded lesson plan, pupils read and summarize articles about the gender pay gap and...
National Endowment for the Humanities
Revolution '67, Lesson 2: What Happened in July 1967? How Do We Know?
Even in a world in which dozens of participants and curious onlookers record every controversial event, the basic facts of what happened are often in dispute. Revolution '67, Lesson 2 explores 1967 Newark, New Jersey using an examination...
Stanford University
Corroboration
How do historians corroborate the information in a primary source document? They use the questions features on this poster!
Curated OER
Activity 10: Primary and Secondary Sources
Students sort documents into primary and secondary sources and analyze their reliability. In this history research lesson, the teacher gathers a selection of document images, then discusses primary and secondary sources and their benefits.
Common Sense Media
Legit-O-Meter
Pop-ups, banner ads, grammar mistakes ... these are all signs of an untrustworthy website. With the handy Legit-O-Meter poster, scholars can now double-check their sources to ensure accurate, reliable information. The color-coded poster...
Stanford University
Great Plains Homesteaders
"Westward, ho!" may have been their cry in spite of the hardships. Using a series of photographs by Solomon D. Butcher of those who ventured west, class members consider what life was like in the 1800s for those who embarked on the...
Teaching Tolerance
Understanding and Evaluating Online Searches
With billions of options to choose from, how can people determine which online sources are reliable? Using an informative resource, pupils first discuss and evaluate a sample search result handout. Next, partners create a checklist for...
Common Sense Media
Fake News: Historical Timeline
In 1874, The New York Herald falsely claimed that several animals escaped from the Central Park Zoo, and panic ensued. Using the helpful infographic, pupils discover more instances of fake news throughout history, from as far back as 63...
Curated OER
George Winter
Who is George Winter? Learners review knowledge of George Winter, an artist who captured images of the Trail of Tears. They distinguish the difference between primary and secondary sources and determine the reliability of a document....
Curated OER
The Wrights' Flight: History Through Primary Sources
Pupils read primary source material about the Wrights' first flight such as a journal and a telegram. In this The Wrights' Flight lesson, students select the most reliable primary source and compare the pros and cons of using primary...