Fact or Fiction?

Urban Legends and Misconceptions




Overview/Introduction:

This lesson introduces students to a process for using web site resources to verify the accuracy of biology information. Specifically, after following a guided lesson on evaluating web sites and determining content accuracy, students will select a piece of unusual biology information that they have read or heard about from non-expert sources. They will then find reliable web sites with information that either supports or refutes the biological concepts embedded in the story or piece of information. They will determine whether the information is biologically accurate based on their research and then explain and defend their reasoning and conclusions during a peer review. Finally, they will pool their findings to create an online flashcard game to share with others.

Purpose or Objective:

  1. To learn and practice how to evaluate web sites,

  2. To learn about science misconceptions, urban legends, street lore, folk tales, etc. and then choose one to verify its underlying biological information,

  3. To determine the reliability of an online web site for gathering scientific information,

  4. To determine whether their story information is scientifically accurate,

  5. To explain and defend their conclusions in a peer review, and

  6. To educate others about the accuracy of these stories and ideas.

Skills: Basic content research and critical thinking skills.

Time Required: 1 to 3 periods

Materials, Tools, and Resources Needed:

Content Verification Forms and computers with access to the internet, paint programs, and simple authoring programs.

Web Sites:

AFU and Urban Legends Archive

Animal Diversity Web

Ask a Curator!

Ask An Ecologist

Canadian Museum of Nature: Amazing Lemmings

Great Horned Owls

Kopi Luwak Coffee Sales

Lemmings

MAD Question

Natural History Museum site

Peterson Online

Smithsonian Institute National Zoological Park Web Site

Smithsonian Institute: The Strange Tale of Luwak Coffee

USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center

Wild Birds Unlimited Ask the Expert

Ye Olde Wives Tales

Teacher Preparation: Before starting this lesson, you may want to review the module sections on student evaluation and web site longevity.

Prerequisite Student Knowledge:

Basic computer skills, e.g., clicking, scrolling, getting online, opening and navigating around web sites, and skills in searching for information on the internet.

Technology- online content resources and evaluation, Biology-various biological concepts and facts of interest to the students, and Scientific Thinking- research, logic, reasoning, and explanation skills.

Procedure:

  1. Ask the students if they're heard the story about New Yorkers buying baby alligators for pets, getting tired of taking care of them, and then flushing them down toilets to get rid of them. The story one often hears is that instead of drowning, the alligators flourished in the sewers, growing to enormous size and, in the absence of light, turning into white, ferocious predators who sometimes emerge from the sewers to wreak revenge by killing humans. Explain to your students that these types of stories and ideas about animals, nature, and medicine are spread by word of mouth or on the Internet. Some are true and others are false. When they are false, we call them misconceptions. The alligator story is a special type of story called an "urban legend". Urban legends usually begin in cities and are spread great distances by word of mouth--now they travel very quickly over the Internet! These stories are comic or frightening versions of what can happen when humans tinker with nature. They usually reinforce the common sentiment that we should respect all creatures and not use them for our entertainment, unless we are prepared to pay a price.

    Ask your students if they can think of any urban legends, folk tales, street lore, or medical advice that they have heard recently from someone who wasn't an expert. Share some of the following ideas that have been the basis of widely spread stories.

    When lemmings overpopulate, they commit suicide by running by the millions over cliffs into the ocean to drown.

    A rare type of coffee called Kopi Luwak, which can cost up to $75 per quarter pound, is made from coffee beans collected from the feces of the toddy cat. It has a wonderful, musty flavor and you've got to try it at least once in your life.

    Be really careful about what you feed your dog. Feeding chocolate bars and avocados to dogs will cause their stomachs to inflate and kill them.

    As a joke, many people have been asked to go "snipe hunting". The joke is that they wander around for hours searching for a snipe but never find one since there's no such thing.

    Humans are lazy and use only 10% of their brains. If they used the other 90% of their brains, they'd accomplish a lot more.

    A greater number of babies are born 9 months after a power blackout than at any other time of the year.

    The location of the planets and stars at the time of your birth determines your personality traits.

    Your hair can turn white overnight, especially after you've been frightened.

    There have been sightings of a tall, hairy, shy hominid that inhabits the dense woodland mountains of the American west. This creature is called Bigfoot. A similar creature sighted in Canada is called Sasquatch. These creatures are known to stand at least eight feet tall and have long arms, an ape-like face with a flat nose, a pelt of thick hair, and an odor similar to musk.

    A certain indoor cactus from Mexico has been known to explode at night due to enormous numbers of scorpion babies hatching inside it. The babies will then crawl around your house and repeatedly sting anything that moves.

    Cuckoo birds lay their eggs in other birds' nests. When the cuckoo babies hatch, they murder the other birds' chicks by shoving them out of the nest. The cuckoo babies then get their "foster parents" to feed and raise them.

  2. Ask your students how they could determine whether the information contained in these stories is scientifically accurate. Focus on answers that reflect research, investigation, and experimental strategies such as testing the idea or researching what has already been found.

  3. Model a Web Site and Content Evaluation Process:

    Review the cuckoo story above and introduce the Natural History Museum web site at by projecting it onto a screen, gathering the class around a large monitor, or creating a web wacker program. Ask the students if they think a museum web site would be a good source of science information with which to verify the cuckoo story. Discuss reasons why it would be a good resource and focus on web site evaluation criteria such as reliability, currentness, understandability, and accuracy. Click on Amazing Facts and review the information with the class. Ask how many students are surprised at the bird information.

    Now, go through this website (or one of your choice) modeling how to determine the accuracy and usefulness of a site for verifying content information. See the following text for suggestions on how to do this for each criteria.

    Evaluation Criteria:

    Reliable: Define scientific expertise and experience. Demonstrate various ways of finding information about an author's or sponsor's expertise. For example, look for and click on author, sponsor, more information about this site, and home page links. Or, delete the part of the URL that comes after .org, .com, .gov, and .edu to get to the home page. Point out that lack of information about the expertise of a web site's source or author means the information can't be considered accurate until it's been verified by an expert source. Also, explain the meanings of .org (organization), .com (company), .gov (government), and .edu (education). At this point in time, have a discussion about bias.

    Current: Point out the copyright or revision date usually found at the bottom of the home page. Discuss the timeliness of scientific information. Many discoveries are being made daily, especially in areas such as astronomy, microbiology, and medicine. Discuss what a reasonable copyright or revision date might be for bird information--one year, two years, three years, five years, ten years?

    Understandable: Information on a web site should be easy to read, have clear pictures and drawings, use words that students can understand, define science terms, and contain little advertising. Bring up a web site that has a lot of scientific jargon such as African Grey Parrot Research Studies and one that has intrusive advertising such as African Greys World. Discuss reasons for jargon and advertising.

    Accurate: Explain that when a web site is questionable or the facts seem unbelievable, students should cross reference the information, i.e., search for the same information at a reliable web site, ask an expert online, or look for the information in scientific resources such as science journals--many of which are now online. Discuss the difference between primary and secondary sources and how to judge scientific data.

    As an example of cross referencing, bring up a site on Great Horned Owls and as a class select some interesting or unbelievable information. Demonstrate cross referencing this information at a reliable web site such as Animal Diversity Web, Peterson Online, or USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center. If you can't find the same information at those sites, go to an Ask an Expert site such as Wild Birds Unlimited Ask the Expert, Ask a Curator!), MAD Question), or Ask An Ecologist and then send an email asking about the unusual fact. Be sure to check for an answer in a few weeks.

  4. Introduce the Fact or Fiction Activity. Be sure to assign deadlines for each task and schedule computer lab time if necessary.

  5. When the students have completed the activity, have them share their conclusions with the class as part of a peer review. They should tell the stories or information that they chose, show the web sites and information they found to support or refute the accuracy of the content, and defend their fact or fiction conclusions. Students in the audience should assess the information, ask questions regarding the sites' reliability and accuracy, and, if necessary, politely challenge the validity of the student's conclusion.

  6. At this point in time, your students may want to pool their findings to create a simple flashcard game that tests knowledge of scientific accuracy of urban legends, tall tales, and street lore. Each student could design and create his or her own card using a paint program. The front side of the card could have the story and the back side could state whether it's Fact, Fiction, or Unclear and include the supporting or refuting text along with URLs. These cards could then be printed out and used as a hands-on flashcard game or be integrated into a computer flashcard game created with a simple authoring program such as HyperCard. Don't forget to come up with game rules, time limitations, and a point system. Your students may also want to use the completed flashcard game as an experimental device that tests different groups' biology knowledge.

Student Handouts/ Record Sheets:

  1. Student Activity

  2. Content Verification Form
Assessment:

Check the Story Content Research Forms for accuracy and completeness. Final evaluation should include a review of the forms, student presentations, student questions during peer review, and completion of flashcards. You may want to have the class create the rubric for this evaluation.

National Education Technology Standards for Students Addressed:

4. Technology communications tools

  •  
    		•  Students use telecommunications to collaborate, publish, and interact with peers, experts, and other audiences.

    5. Technology research tools

  •  
    		•  Students evaluate and select new information resources and technological innovations based on the appropriateness to specific tasks.


    The Integrating Technology into Science Instruction webpages project is partially funded by grants from The Boeing Company and The Ralph M. Parsons Foundation. Integrating Technology into Instruction is a project of Target Science (target@laep.org) and is displayed on the Los Angeles Educational Partnership Learning Exchange. Target Science is an initiative of the Los Angeles Educational Partnership.
    Updated July 2000