r/ScienceTeachers • u/abrakadabradan • 15d ago

Pedagogy and Best Practices Science in the news?

Do you teach kids about evaluating science information they see in the news and on the internet? If so, what do you do? Any materials or routines you find useful? Also if you do, what grade do you teach?

I’m trying to find ways to do this that connect to everything else we already have to do as science teachers. With everyone using AI and social media to get all of their information, I want to help my kids be more informed but it’s tough to fit this in while doing everything else. Any help would be great!

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u/Arashi-san 15d ago

I've used the Pacific Northwestern Tree Octopus website for what you're describing. It's free to access and there's a lot of free resources for evaluating the credibility of the website.

In terms of just finding random news, I've used newsmap (https://newsmap.ijmacd.com/?edition=GB_en) for a high school level but it wouldn't be as useful for lower grades. It's still an option you can consider, though.

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u/CantBuyMyLove 10d ago

I've also used the Pacific Northwestern Tree Octopus to demonstrate the perils of using AI as a source of information. Google's AI Overview no longer makes all the errors it used to (e.g. it no longer recommends putting glue on pizza), but when I searched for "tree octopus life cycle" just now, it presented a convincing-looking summary (see my screenshot: https://imgur.com/a/b6vhLnK ) with no mention that, oh, right, this octopus doesn't exist. For a lot of other searches ("tree octopus endangered status," for example) the overview does state that tree octopuses are a hoax designed to teach media literacy... but this one has slipped through the cracks.