Unpacking the Truth: teaching pupils about disinformation

Unpacking the Truth is a 1-hour classroom activity aimed at students aged 16 to 18 years, designed to teach critical thinking, fact-checking and the use of official resources to debunk disinformation.

It centres on analysis of a fictional social media post. Students are divided into teams of 5−6, and each team investigates a number of claims made in the fictional social media post with the help of six EU characters who will guide them to the appropriate resources.

The game proceeds in stages:

1. Warm up: Disinformation and trustworthy resources: A brief presentation on disinformation and EU resources, with 2−3 warm-up questions.
2. Introduction: Explain the rules of the game. Explain that some claims in the post are false and that their task is to uncover the facts with the help of the comments (only some of which are helpful).
3. Create teams and distribute materials: Divide the class into teams of 5−6 and distribute copies of the fictional social media post and the related comments.
4. Investigation phase: Teams investigate the claims in the fictional social media post using six EU characters as their guides
5. Team presentations: The teams present their findings for each claim, showing the false claims they have identified, the resources they used and why the claims are false.

Pupils develop skills in analysing and debunking false information, familiarise themselves with reliable EU resources on EU law, data and publications, understand how false information can distort facts and harm public understanding and collaborate effectively as a team to solve complex problems.

• Age group: 16-18
• Subject: Digital literacy  
• Published by: Publications Office of the EU and the European Commission Representation in Luxembourg
• Year: 2023
• Languages available: EN
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