YouTube Recommendations: Who’s Steering Your View?

In this media literacy activity students analyze three online articles for messages about the impact of YouTube recommendations on viewers.

Young People Taking Action to Protect our Warming Planet

This is a media literacy and critical thinking activity in which students analyze four short excerpts from online articles for messages about youth activism for environmental protection and social justice.

Youth Activism

Media literacy and critical thinking lesson using four short film excerpts to reflect on the role of young activists in the black freedom/civil rights movement.

Youth, Hip Hop & Climate Change

This is a media literacy and critical thinking activity in which students analyze two short hip hop music video to compare different approaches to encourage youth activism to deal with climate change.

“The Truth About Coronavirus” - Google Searching For COVID-19

In this media literacy activity students analyze results from two Google searches, one for “coronavirus” and one for “the real truth about coronavirus,” to reflect on the impact of search terms on the sources that Google recommends.  

Standards Alignment: National Media Literacy Alliance Joint Statement on Media Literacy Education

This 3-page document briefly summarizes the alignment of media literacy with the core standards for each of the following disciplines: library (AASL + YALSA), technology (ISTE), Journalism (JEA), Early Childhood (NAEYC), Social Studies (NCSS), ELA (NCTE), Math (NCTM), Science (NSTA), and Writing (NWP).

Briefing: Project Look Sharp's Decoding Media Constructions and Sustainability

Antonio Lopez, in his coda to Greening Media Education, summarizes the complex set of skills needed “to bring ecologically oriented cultural practice into the realm of media education (which) promotes systems thinking, collaborative learning, critical thinking, lifelong learning and digital media literacy.” This article offers cases studies of two Look Sharp lessons, one for elementary age students and another for upper level high school, each of which was designed with these skills in mind as a way to bring Lopez’s vision into practice in the classroom.

College Level: Hydrofracking, Media and Credibility

Related to kit: Media Constructions of Sustainability: Fingerlakes

This 9 minute annotated video demonstrates constructivist media decoding using the lesson "Exploring the Impact of Hydrofracking on Aquifers," where college students analyze pro and anti-fracking diagrams.

College Level: Farming, Community and Sustainability

Related to kit: Media Constructions of Sustainability: Food, Water, and Agriculture

An example of leading a class through a constructivist media decoding using a lesson from our kit, Media Construction of Sustainability. Students in this video examine clips from a film and a commercial to decode farming in the US.

High School Science: The Great Global Warming Swindle

An example of leading a class through a constructivist media decoding using a lesson from our kit, Media Constructions of Global Warming. Students analyze a short video clip from the film The Great Global Warming Swindle, compare the information in the clip with a chart, and reflect on issues of credibility and bias in media representations and our own biases when evaluating information.

Sustainability Education and Media Literacy

Related to kit: Media Constructions of Sustainability: Food, Water, and Agriculture

This article looks at how the topic of climate change can often provoke deep emotions in students, and suggests that instead of shying away, teachers should use media literacy activities to foster discussions of what the future holds. The author stresses the importance of connecting to the emotional lives of students when raising the complex issues around sustainability.

Credibility, Information and Science

Designed for secondary science and environmental studies teachers, this 2 hour to full day workshop will explore the role of the internet and other media on our students understanding of information.

Media & Health Issues

Media literacy education is a powerful way to approach the impact of media use and media messages on a wide range of health issues for today’s youth by emphasizing media analysis, critical thinking, and self-expression. This 2-hour to full day workshop can address multiple health issues or focus specifically on one of them, including: nutrition, body image, advertising, alcohol and substance use, smoking, bullying and put-downs, safety, and teen sexuality.

Teaching Media Literacy & Sustainability for Younger Learners

Related to kit: Media Constructions of Sustainability: Lower Elementary

This webinar offers pedagogical techniques and curriculum materials to support a deeper understanding of how to use media documents that: support content teaching about water quality, climate change and hunger, introduce media production as a way to deepen media literacy awareness, and encourage core subject integration of ELA, math, science and social studies.

Teaching about Climate Change Using the Tools of Media Literacy

This webinar offers pedagogical techniques and curriculum materials to support a deeper understanding for how to use a wide variety of media documents that: - Support content teaching about climate change - Examine media representations of global warming related to media literacy concepts of credibility, bias and impact - Encourage strong sense critical thinking by asking questions about all media messages, not just those with which we may disagree.

Media Constructions of Energy Choices: Empowering Students to See Through the Smoke

Related to kit: Media Constructions of Sustainability: Food, Water, and Agriculture

This webinar offers pedagogical techniques and curriculum materials to support a deeper understanding of how to address issues of bias in media documents about energy choices. Learn to to seek out and use media sources to deepen critical thinking practice about authorship, purpose, credibility and economics.

Where Media Literacy Meets Sustainability Education

Related to kit: Media Constructions of Sustainability: Fingerlakes

The webinar offers educators and teachers-in-training pedagogical techniques and curriculum materials to support constructivist media decoding to help students engage in critical thinking about the complex environmental, economic and social systems that underly sustainability.

Elementary Level: First Contact Between Europeans and Native Americans

An example of leading a class through a constructivist media decoding using our lesson, First Contact. Students in this video decode two opposing paintings to understand how Europeans impacted Native American life.

Elementary Level: Decoding Money

Related to kit: Introducing Africa: Critical Thinking and Media Literacy

An example of leading a class through a constructivist media decoding using a lesson from our kit, Introducing Africa. Students in this video compare two African currencies to the U.S. Dollar to gain insight about cultural differences.

The Impact of Using News as a Primary Source in Classrooms

This article, by a high school senior who was working with Project Look Sharp’s Chris Sperry, explores the use of news as a primary text in a Humanities class to teach students to think critically about the news, world events, and their own perspectives.