Welcome to bESTology 2025
fACTOIDS

Your team is about to embark on an invaluable journey that will further the use of technology and human interaction for the future.  Knowing the importance of your mission, your team recognizes that your investigators, known as Librarians, will conduct investigations and research to uncover this new technology breakthrough and learn how to facilitate the positive use to benefit humanity. Are you ready for this Mission? Is your team of Librarians ready? Lets begin by moving to the topic shown below.

Week  #1-  “The truth is rarely pure and never simple” –Oscar Wilde

Now that your Librarians are gathered and ready for your first mission, using the questions and links below, you will discover how your team can understand the Oscar Wilde quote and begin to use critical thinking to complete your mission. 

RESOURCES

Have you ever tried to determine the reliability of memes, social media or media posts before? If so, what method did you use? How accurate were the results? How did your feelings or thoughts influence your decision to determine if the item was True or Fake?

Tools You Can Use: 
Verification: Google Image Search Tools 

News: Fact or Fiction

Resource Title	Website URL
Begin the Reality Check Media Smarts	Game Media Smarts: News You Can Use
Evaluating Resources and Misinformation	Resource The CRAAP Test
How Good Are You At Spotting Fake News	Challenge Fake News Challenge
PBS Fact VS Fiction	Sorting Through Misinformation

RESEARCH

Resource Title	Website URL
Critical Eye for the Critical Brain	Can You Tell the Difference
Which Is True	Which Is Real
Don’t Believe Everything You Read	Revisiting the Fake Pacific Northwest Coast Octopus

ACTIVITY

Challenge! Can you make decisions to find the Real Image or the Truthful information? Click the link to begin   Fake News Stories of 2024                      Can You Spot the Fakes

GOING FURTHER

Being human influences what we choose to believe as real or true. What human thoughts, behaviors, or ideals have influenced your choice for truth?

INQUIRY PROJECT

Oscar Wilde created a comedy The Importance of Becoming Ernest. The quote at the beginning of this lesson is from his play. Learn about Oscar Wilde and using what you have learned in this lesson share why his quote “The truth is rarely pure and never simple” is very relevant for society today

BEST IN YOUR COMMUNITY

In your community there are places you can go to investigate information about a variety of topics– Libraries. How many libraries are in your community? Connect with a librarian near you. Find out how they help your community. How could a library help you with your team completing these missions?

BASED ON A TRUE STORY

There are many ways humans are tricked into believing something fake is real or true. Use this website to see different ways we have been tricked into believing misinformation.

Fake News Examples in Real Life

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