2026 Philadephia Institute:

Teaching Students to Evaluate Sources and Claims

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Screenshot from Google Street View of Philadelphia Performing Arts: A String Theory Charter School

Provenance: Science Learning Research Group, UMD
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

Introductions & Icebreaker

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• Icebreaker (Acrobat (PDF) 4.7MB Jun24 26)

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.

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• Activity 2: Science in the News (Acrobat (PDF) 849kB Jun24 26)
• Activity 2A Handout: What Can We Learn From These Sources (Acrobat (PDF) 84kB Jun2 25)
• Source #1: Measles Truth or Consequences (Acrobat (PDF) 237kB Jun24 26)
• Source #2: Global measles cases almost double in a year, say researchers (Acrobat (PDF) 127kB Jun24 26)
• 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 (Acrobat (PDF) 153kB Jun24 26)
• Source #2: Debunking The Erythritol Study (Acrobat (PDF) 915kB Jun24 26)
• Science in the News Resources (Acrobat (PDF) 146kB Jun24 26)

Break

Break

• ....a little time for yourself

Disciplinary Venn Diagram

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

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• Activity 3: Disciplinary Venn Diagram (Acrobat (PDF) 714kB Jun24 26)
• Disciplinary Venn Diagram (Acrobat (PDF) 77kB Jun5 23)

Website Introduction

Slides and Handouts from the workshop and other resources

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• Activity 4: Project Website (Acrobat (PDF) 538kB Jun24 26)

Lunch

Lunch!

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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.

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• 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?

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• Activity 6: Intro to Credibility (Acrobat (PDF) 1.1MB Jun24 26)
• Intro to Credibility Guiding Questions (Acrobat (PDF) 142kB Jun24 26)

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.

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• Activity 7: Wetlands pcMEL (Acrobat (PDF) 3.2MB Jun25 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?

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

Website: Explore Teaching Resources section

Lateral Reading, MEL Activities, and In the Classroom

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• LR-MEL Teaching Resources

Wrap Up

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

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• 1) How do you feel after today?