• In this media literacy activity, students will read two articles about the scientific consensus that humans are causing global warming. 
• Students will answer a variety of decoding questions that will help them examine the methods the authors used in the articles to validate or prove their points. 

Positives

• This lesson encourages students to consider how their own biases influence their judgment.
• Students will see how citing a variety of credible sources can help to bolster a claim.

Additional Prerequisites

• Teachers must create a free account to access the resources.
• Teachers have to download the files to use this resource.
  

Differentiation

• Students could respond to questions individually or in small groups before discussing their answers as a class.
  

• The activity plan provides questions for social studies, science, English language arts, and media literacy classes.
• Students could discuss what makes a source credible. Students could consider the following questions:
  • How do people verify information?
  • What makes people trust an information provider?
  • What might make someone change their mind about something they believe is true?
• Other resources on this topic include this lesson on how we know climate change is real and this lesson from the National Center for Science Education on the scientific consensus about climate change.

This resource addresses the listed standards. To fully meet standards, search for more related resources.