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What competencies a student needs to be information and media literacy?

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What competencies a student needs to be information and media literacy?

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For students to develop strong competencies regarding information and media literacy, they need to have good research skills, analytical reasoning, and digital literacy. As a student, I must use these skills in my various classes. As I go to different schools, I can see from an educator perspective how important it is to be competent regarding information and media literacy. Technology is a gift and an amazing tool, but it is pointless if we do not know how to use it. Being able to find sources that are reliable and sufficient is very hard without media literacy.

First, students need to have proficient research skills. These skills include being able to navigate different databases, knowing what to search for, and knowing where to search. Having these skills will help students to gather reliable sources and will make finding these sources much easier.

Next, students can develop strong competencies regarding information and media literacy when they are good at analytical reasoning. Analytical reasoning is the ability to analyze a source and its information, know whether it is credible, and the ability to determine bias within the source. When finding a source, whether it be for a paper, project, picture, etc., it is important that it comes from a reliable source. Students need to learn how to determine this so they can be information and media literacy competent.

Lastly, students need to have proper digital literacy skills. This means being able to use different digital tools. This includes being able to navigate different media platforms, including blogs, social media, articles, videos, etc. Because our world and schools are very technological, it is important for our students to stay up to date with their technology skills. This means being digital literate. When students can navigate various platforms and have knowledge when it comes to different digital tools, they are able to succeed in our advancing world.

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Real examples of false/mis- information in science:

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Real examples of false/mis- information in science:

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The Earth is flat??

Many people believe that the Earth is flat. In fact, there are entire communities and groups that promote this idea. This is very prevalent on social media and other online platforms. To contradict this theory, there are many ways to prove that the Earth is round. First, by simply looking at the space satellites, you can see the Earth's curvature. The lunar eclipse is another way to prove this. The only object that will cast a round shadow no matter what time of day or year it is, is a sphere. Therefore, the Earth is not flat, and is in fact round.

Climate change is fake??

It is a common opinion that climate change is not real or humans have no factor in it. While many people believe in this, there is not any proof to back it up. This would be considered a conspiracy theory. There is quite a bit of evidence to back up the validity of climate change, however. First of all, it is easily seen that the temperatures over the years are increasing, including the ocean and earth surface temperature, meaning that the earth is warming. The warming of Earth is correlated to human activities, contrary to some beliefs. This human activity includes burning fossil fuels and carbon dioxide production.

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Why would this misinformation lead students to "believing" it?  What ways can we provide information and media literacy training to help them avoid this in their lives?

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Why would this misinformation lead students to "believing" it?  What ways can we provide information and media literacy training to help them avoid this in their lives?

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The flat Earth theory/myth:

I remember there was a trend on social media a few years back where many people were coming out and saying that they believe the Earth is flat. This sparked a lot of conversation and even agreeance. I think that students are susceptible to agree or believe this theory/myth because of social media influence. It is very easy to believe what you see on social media even though there is no evidence to back it up. This is most prevalent in young minds. So what can we do to avoid our students believing what they see on social media? information and literacy training! In classrooms, we should teach to not believe what you see online. We should teach our students to do there own research before taking someone else's word for it. They can do this through library data bases and other scholarly sources.

The climate change conspiracy theory:

The debate of the validity of climate change has been fought for many years. Climate change is also discussed and present on social media, along with flat earth arguments. Because it is a present conversation, students can find themselves siding with those who don't believe in climate change. The conspiracy theory also falls under some political parties. If a students family belongs to a certain party, it could influence their thinking on the subject. Again, I think it is important for the student to do their own research through non biased, factual, and reliable sources. If we teach our students how to navigate different databases, tech them analytical reasoning skills, and research skills, they can see for themselves the truth.

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Proof that the Earth is round source: https://www.unlv.edu/news/release/round-earth-clues-how-science-proves-our-home-globe

Proof of global warming sources:

https://science.nasa.gov/climate-change/evidence/

https://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-qa/what-evidence-exists-earth-warming-and-humans-are-main-cause#:~:text=Mountain%20glaciers%20are%20melting%20worldwide,is%20rising%20(learn%20more).

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Do you want to prove that the Earth is round?

Hop on a plane, and fly to Cape Town, South Africa, or Melbourne, Australia - two major cities located in the Southern Hemisphere. There, you won't be able to see the North Star.

This might seem like an expensive trip, but it's one part of an experiment that can be done to disprove the Flat Earth Theory - a theory at the center of a popular new documentary - Behind the Curve - that is now streaming on Netflix.

The documentary follows several people who espouse the Flat Earth Theory, which is the belief that the Earth is a plane or a disk, and try to generate support for their cause through Internet videos, social media, podcasts, meetings, and even international conferences.

Jason Steffen, an assistant professor of physics and astronomy at UNLV, works in the field of exoplanets (planets that orbit distant stars) and has a history in experimental studies of dark matter, dark energy, and gravity. For more than 10 years, Steffen was also a member of the science team for NASA's Kepler mission. Discoveries from that mission revolutionized our understanding of planets and planetary systems, Steffen said.

As such, he was able to help us break down reasons why the Flat Earth Theory falls flat.

OK, so how do we know - scientifically - that the Earth is a sphere?

At a very basic level, we can see the Earth's curvature through satellites that we've launched into space. Additionally, through the use of high-powered telescopes, we've been able to examine planets both in our solar system and beyond, and all of them are spherical in shape.

There is a very deep, fundamental reason why the Earth is round: the force of gravity depends upon the distance between two interacting objects, and the only three-dimensional object you can make with a single distance is a sphere. We can measure the behavior of gravity in the laboratory with a variety of highly sensitive experiments. Each of these experiments shows that the force of gravity depends only on the mass of the two objects and the distance between them. If, on the other hand, you wanted to form a flattened object using gravity alone, the force of gravity would have to depend upon two, perpendicular distances in two perpendicular directions.

Now, let's backtrack to the time before satellites and telescopes. Why did people once think that the Earth was flat?

The primary reason that ancient people believed that the Earth was flat was that it looks flat from our vantage point on the ground. Most people throughout history never traveled more than a few miles from their place of birth, so the horizon that they saw was always the same. Moreover, most people were more worried about meeting the necessities of life than they were about the shape of the Earth.

The misconception that the Earth must be flat because it looks flat to us arises simply because the Earth is big. The height of an adult is much less than one millionth of the Earth's radius. In order to see the curvature of the Earth in a single field of view, you would need to be perched above the surface a sizable fraction of that radius, and one millionth wouldn't be considered "sizable."

What clues changed their thinking?

This state of affairs started to change about 2,500 years ago during the Iron Age, especially with the Greeks. There are two primary reasons that the Greeks knew the Earth was round:

Lunar eclipses. First, they saw that during a lunar eclipse the shadow of the Earth always had a round profile. This happened regardless of the time of night that the eclipse occurred, the season, or the direction that the shadow crept across the Moon's surface. The only object that casts a circular shadow no matter how you shine a light across it is a sphere. Any other shape would not be able to cast a round shadow under this variety of circumstances.

Star patterns. The second observation is how the pattern of stars changes as you move north and south. If you were to stand at the North Pole, Polaris (the North Star), would be directly overhead. On a flat Earth, Polaris would always be visible - no matter how far away from the North Pole you moved, it would still be above the horizon. However, by the time you reach the equator, Polaris is on the northern horizon, and it disappears entirely once you move into the southern hemisphere. You can't see Polaris from Australia. In fact, the ancient Greeks calculated the circumference of the Earth using this effect and produced an answer that was strikingly close to what we measure today.

If you want to prove that the Earth is a sphere, here's an experiment you can do today:

Quito, Ecuador and Nairobi, Kenya are two cities on the equator. Fly to either and you'll see Polaris on the northern horizon. Cape Town, South Africa and Melbourne, Australia are well south of the equator. Fly to either and you won't see Polaris at all. A few minutes drawing the predictions of the two competing models on a piece of paper is sufficient to exclude one of those models. And, this isn't the only demonstration you can do from the ground.

Flat Earth theorists say that if the Earth is a spinning sphere, why can't they feel it? How did scientists first prove that the Earth rotates?

Though the shape of the Earth had been settled for over two millennia, a scientist by the name of Leon Foucault designed an experiment in 1851, using a very long pendulum, that showed both that the Earth is round and that it rotates. If you place the pendulum at the North Pole, the direction of its swing changes with respect to the ground and completes a full circle each day. Placing the same pendulum on the equator yields no change at all in the direction of the swing. These facts, and the behavior of the pendulum when it is placed anywhere else, agree with Foucault's prediction.

Are there other clues that prove the Earth spins on its axis?

We can see the effects of the Earth's shape and rotation in several other ways:

The six jet streams on the Earth - and how their directions relate to each other - is a consequence of the Earth's shape and rotation.

Artillery gunners must correct for the rotation of the Earth as the shell flies through the air above the surface.

Modern naval guns can shoot far over their visible horizon due to the Earth's curvature.

Hurricanes and (most) tornadoes rotate counter-clockwise in the northern hemisphere while they rotate clockwise in the southern hemisphere. Fun fact: Toilets and sinks are too small to reliably reproduce this effect, despite the rumors that they flush or drain in the opposite direction in the southern hemisphere.

The next time you're at a party, impress your friends with this enlightening experiment

Hold a pencil in front of you, looking down at the tip. Rotate it so that its tip is spinning counter-clockwise. Keep rotating it with your fingers in the same direction as you slowly turn the pencil over so that you are looking at its eraser. Now, the eraser will be spinning clockwise. Slowly rotate it back, while continuing its spin, will bring the tip to the top, rotating counter-clockwise.

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Round Earth Clues: How Science Proves that our Home is a Globe

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As the Flat Earth Theory gains resurgence with a new Netflix documentary, a UNLV astronomer explains how it fizzles.