2025 Georgia Institute:

Teaching Students to Evaluate Sources and Claims

Screenshot from Google Street View of Forsyth County Board of Education Professional Development Center

Provenance: Carla McAuliffe, IGES
Reuse: This item is offered under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ You may reuse this item for non-commercial purposes as long as you provide attribution and offer any derivative works under a similar license.

Day 1

Logistics

Icebreaker & Introductions

• Icebreaker (Acrobat (PDF) 1MB Jun2 25)

Science in the News

How often do you see claims made in the news that seem to be backed by scientific evidence? How can you tell what is real and what is not? Analyze two sources to identify claims or models and the evidence that supports them.

• Activity 2: Science in the News (Acrobat (PDF) 849kB Jun2 25)
• Activity 2A Handout: What Can We Learn From These Sources (Acrobat (PDF) 84kB Jun2 25)
• Source#1: Measles Truth or Consequences
• Source #2: Global measles cases almost double in a year, say researchers
• Hurricane Helene Was Engineered (Acrobat (PDF) 136kB Jun2 25)
• Activity 2B Handout: What can we learn from these sources? (Acrobat (PDF) 45kB Jun4 23)
• Source#1: What to Know About the Study Linking a Popular Artificial Sweetener to Cardiovascular Disease
• Source #2: Debunking The Erythritol Study

Break

Break

• ....a little time for yourself

Disciplinary Venn Diagram

Consider how Science, Social Studies, and Language Arts practices overlap in each content area.

• Activity 3: Disciplinary Venn Diagram (Acrobat (PDF) 2MB Jun2 25)
• Disciplinary Venn Diagram (Acrobat (PDF) 77kB Jun5 23)

Website Introduction

Slides and Handouts from the workshop and other resources

• Activity 4: Project Website (Acrobat (PDF) 538kB Jun2 25)

Lunch

Lunch!

LR Activity: Conserving Attention with Lateral Reading

While students are able to quickly access vast amounts of information today, they often need help deciding what deserves their attention.

• Activity 5: Conserving Attention with Lateral Reading (Acrobat (PDF) 2.6MB Jun2 25)

LR Activity: Introduction to Credibility

What does it mean for a source to be credible? How do you decide whether to believe someone?

• Activity 6: Intro to Credibility (Acrobat (PDF) 1.1MB Jun2 25)
• Intro to Credibility Guiding Questions (Acrobat (PDF) 143kB Jun2 25)

Break

Break

• ....a little time for yourself

MEL Activity: Wetlands pcMEL

Use a pre-constructed MEL (pcMEL) diagram to investigate two explanations about how wetlands affect humans and the environment.

• Activity 7: Wetlands pcMEL (Acrobat (PDF) 2.5MB Jun3 25)
• Wetlands pcMEL Teaching Resources

Connections between LR and MEL Activities

Revisit your Disciplinary Venn Diagram posters. What connections exist between an LR lesson and a MEL lesson? What further connections can we make?

• Activity 8: Connections (Acrobat (PDF) 382kB Jun20 25)

Wrap Up

Feedback on two questions: 1) How do you feel after today? and 2) What questions do you have after today?

• 1) How do you feel after today?
• 

  Day 1 Q1

  Provenance: Carla McAuliffe, IGES
  Reuse: This item is offered under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ You may reuse this item for non-commercial purposes as long as you provide attribution and offer any derivative works under a similar license.

• 2) What questions do you have after today?
• 

  Day 1 Q2a

  Provenance: Carla McAuliffe, IGES
  Reuse: This item is offered under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ You may reuse this item for non-commercial purposes as long as you provide attribution and offer any derivative works under a similar license.
• 

  Day 1 Q2b

  Provenance: Carla McAuliffe, IGES
  Reuse: This item is offered under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ You may reuse this item for non-commercial purposes as long as you provide attribution and offer any derivative works under a similar license.

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Day 2

LR Activity: Introducing Lateral Reading

What does it mean for a source to be credible? Why should we investigate whether a source is credible before we read it?

• Activity 10: Introducing Lateral Reading (Acrobat (PDF) 979kB Jun20 25)
• Lateral Reading Guiding Questions (Acrobat (PDF) 83kB Jun20 25)

MEL Activity: Soil and Food Security baMEL

MEL Activity: Energy baMEL

• Activity 14: Energy baMEL (Acrobat (PDF) 1.6MB Jun3 25)
• Alternative Fuels Data Center
• U.S. Energy Information Administration

MEL Activity: Assessment

MEL Activity: Dead Zones baMEL

A dead zone is an area of water that is low in oxygen. Aquatic life cannot survive in a dead zone. Build a MEL (baMEL) diagram to investigate whether and how aquatic dead zones may be repaired. Choose from three models and eight lines of evidence.

• MEL Activity: Dead Zones baMEL (Acrobat (PDF) 1.9MB Jul25 24)
• Dead Zones baMEL Teaching Resources Below
• Plausibility Ranking Task (Acrobat (PDF) 76kB May6 24)
• Dead Zones baMEL Model Plausibility Ratings (Acrobat (PDF) 146kB Jul10 25)
• Dead Zones baMEL Model Cards (Acrobat (PDF) 57kB Jun30 24)
• Dead Zones baMEL Large Model Cards (Acrobat (PDF) 130kB Jun30 24)
• Dead Zones baMEL Evidence Cards (Acrobat (PDF) 30kB Jun30 24)
• Dead Zones baMEL Large Evidence Cards (Acrobat (PDF) 41kB Aug1 23)
• Dead Zones baMEL - Evidence Texts Color (Acrobat (PDF) 2MB Jun30 24)
• baMEL Diagram (Acrobat (PDF) 183kB Jun26 25)
• Explanation Task (Acrobat (PDF) 52kB May6 24)

LR & MEL Teacher Guides

• MEL Project Teacher Guide
• MEL Explanation Task Rubric Teacher Guide (Acrobat (PDF) 70kB Jun4 25)

MEL & LR Implementation Planning & Evaluation

• Activity 26: Implementation Planning & Evaluation (Acrobat (PDF) 543kB Jun5 25)
• Template

Workshop Evaluation

• Post Survey