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STEM Activities for Your Classroom

The Internet: An incredible resource — help your students use it with savvy!

The Internet is an awesome resource for both teaching and learning! This author began her career as a science educator in 1978, and as a result of the Internet’s appearance on the classroom scene (in the mid ‘90s), experienced true evolution of her classroom practice. The depth and breadth of information available continues to amaze all—but especially those who grew up without it.

Yes, we can gather information at the speed of electrons, yet we need to teach students, regardless of their age, to evaluate that information. What is the source of the information? Is the source neutral, or does it appear to be biased? What is the expertise of the authors? Is the information up to date? Can the information be verified? Educators must work with children to help them develop these analytical skills. One way to do that is to critically examine Internet sites with the children and model the processes you use as you consider the information you read. Material gleaned from social media should be inspected with students, too, and of course print media are not exempt from critique.— Susan Camasta

Resources for you:

• A video from The Teaching Channel on analyzing websites with students
• General information from University of California-Berkeley
• Here you’ll find info, worksheets, and sites that you can use to demonstrate the evaluation of websites. There are some “bogus” websites here to use as examples