English Language Arts

The Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts Reading Standards for Literature include analyzing different media forms (Integration of Knowledge and Ideas strand), and other strands such as Key Ideas and details and Craft and Structure could easily be applied to other media forms beyond print media. Reading Standards for Informational Text are also readily applicable to other media forms, and Integration of Knowledge and Ideas strand specifically mentions different media forms.

Health & Physical Education

Unfortunately, health and nutrition misinformation is very common across all kinds of media and information sources. Developing a critical eye to media influences and being able to access and evaluate information are crucial skills for making informed health decisions. The National Health Education Standards (NHES) Standard 2: "Students will analyze the influence of family, peers, culture, media, technology, and other factors on health behaviors" and Standard 3: "Students will demonstrate the ability to access valid information and products and services to enhance health" are directly related to media and information literacy.

• "Can you spot the problem with these headlines?" This five-minute video from TED-Ed presents hypothetical health studies and headlines and challenges viewers to spot what’s misleading about the headline.
• Evaluating Health Information: A collection of resources and articles on evaluating health information from MedlinePlus.
• Nutrition Misinformation: How to Identify Fraud and Misleading Claims: This fact sheet from Colorado State University shares common red flags and other strategies for recognizing nutrition misinformation.
• Know the Science: An initiative from the National Institutes of Health to help consumers better understand complex scientific topics that relate to health research and make well-informed decisions about their health.
• Understanding Medical Research: A collection of articles and resources to help readers better understand the process of medical research from MedlinePlus.

Mathematics

"The numbers don't lie. But people do."

NCTM Media Literacy Resources: This collection of resources from the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics includes webinars, lesson plans, journal articles, and resources according to specific grade levels.

Critical Media Literacy: Math: This research guide from UCLA Libraries includes a variety of resources related to integrating critical media literacy into mathematics instruction.

Recognizing Misleading Graphs

• 5 Ways Writers Use Misleading Graphs To Manipulate You [INFOGRAPHIC] Blog post from Ryan McCready includes an infographic on recognizing misleading graphs, as well as more detailed explanations with real-life examples.
• 13 Graphs That Are Clearly Lying "The numbers don't lie, but humans do." A collection of misleading and manipulated graphs from Buzzfeed News.
• Misleading Graphs … and how to fix them! Blog post by data scientist Maarten Grootendorst provides examples of misleading graphs, and how they could be fixed.
• How to Display Data Badly [PDF] A 1984 tongue-in-cheek article by Howard Wainer for the journal American Statistician explains the 12 strategies for displaying data as badly as possible.

Science & Engineering

Media and information literacy in the sciences, including health, warrants special attention, particularly in light of global science and health crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change and subsequent “infodemics” associated with these challenges.

Critical Media Literacy: Science: This research guide from UCLA Libraries includes a variety of resources related to integrating critical media literacy into science instruction. (See also: their page on Climate Change and Environmental Justice.)

TED-Ed: Hone your media literacy skills: This playlist of short, engaging videos from TED-Ed covers a variety of topics related to media and information literacy, and many focus specifically on health and science topics, as well as videos on statistics and graphs.

Science & Children
NSTA Elementary School Professional Journal

• Analyzing Media Representations of Animals [PDF] Images of animals or objects in media may not contain clues about scale. Illustrations are valuable tools in helping children judge whether an image is an accurate representation of the animal, an accurate image enlarged or reduced in size, or even an altered photograph. Here, Ashbrook talks about media literacy education and its application in teaching children to analyze and interpret illustrations to determine sizes of pictured animals.
• Becoming Scientifically Literate [PDF] Scientific literacy is having an understanding of what science is and how to use scientific information in daily decision making. Educators support children's developing scientific literacy so that we all have some knowledge about natural phenomena, can make informed decisions and evaluate claims, and can figure out how to answer our questions.
• From Facts to Solutions [PDF] Describes an 8-10 week problem-based learning unit for fifth graders that introduced them to the facts underlying global climate change. This unit was inspired by the lack of awareness around this threat to our global ecosystem and takes on this goal: to provide students (our future advocates and voters) with a firm understanding of the data and science related to climate change.
• Absorbing Visual Literacy [PDF] Introduces the concept of visual literacy into the science classroom by using diaper advertisements. Students investigated\ how polymers affect diapers by working in pairs to compare diaper absorbency in regards to companies' absorbency claims of their products.

Science Scope
NSTA Middle School Professional Journal

• Climate Change Photosynthesis Misleading Information [PDF] Students draw on their knowledge of photosynthesis to examine and evaluate the argument that increased CO2 levels are good for plants. Because some knowledge of photosynthesis is required, we recommend that students at least be introduced to the chemical equation for photosynthesis before this lesson.
• Teaching Critical Thinking Through Media Literacy [PDF] Students live and learn in a media-saturated environment where information abounds, but wisdom is often lacking. As teachers, we must tie our science curricula to students’ real-life experiences: When our students see the utility of scientific thought and reason in helping them make sense of their world, then our classrooms will be truly relevant.
• Viral News: Media Literacy for the 21st Century [PDF] In the past decade, mass media have become increasingly significant mediators of modern society, including science. It is essential for students to understand the constructed nature of media and become better prepared to make critical decisions regarding how to find, interpret, and evaluate the messages delivered through media.
• Data Literacy 101 [PDF] This short article presents interdisciplinary ideas for integrating data skills and graphs in the science classroom.
• Using critical thinking to counter misinformation [PDF] Short commentary on the role of teaching critical thinking and media literacy to counter misinformation in the science classroom.

The Science Teacher
NSTA High School Professional Journal

• Making Science Relevant: Using Socio-Scientific Issues to Foster Critical Thinking [PDF] Many of today's most important scientific challenges also have substantial social components. Investigating these socio-scientific issues helps students develop socio-scientific reasoning, a type of critical thinking consistent with the Next Generation Science Standards.
• Science Journalism: Students learn lifelong science literacy skills by reporting the news [PDF] The "Science Literacy Through Science Journalism" project explores how the practices of good science journalism can inform high school science education. As high school students report science news, they learn to gather and contextualize information and bring critical eyes to that which they read and write.
• Teaching Scientific Literacy [PDF] Short commentary article explores how Science teachers can help English and Language Arts teachers-and students-by assigning science-related articles from newspapers and magazines, or even books, including high-quality fiction.
• Just Say No! Teaching Students to Resist Scientific Misinformation [PDF] Science--with its accepted methods for verifying new claims and building common knowledge--provides an ideal domain for honing the skills needed to be a critical consumer of information. Teachers can use experimentally tested approaches that will help students learn to separate science fact from science fiction .

Social Studies

Social Studies is a uniquely broad and interdisciplinary subject area which easily integrates many topics and learning opportunities related to media and information literacy. In social studies classes, students learn to identify bias, examine primary and secondary source documents, use different kinds of information sources, and undertake independent research projects.

According to the National Council for Social Studies, the mission of social studies is the “promoting civic competence.” In a 2022 position statement on Media Literacy the NCSS explains that today “young people are immersed in a complicated media ecology that promotes an infodemic of disinformation and profit-driven spin while simultaneously presenting extraordinary opportunities for participatory engagement. The social studies classroom is a critical platform for preparing our next generation to cope and thrive amid this unprecedented deluge of mediated messages.”