Media Literacy and Sourcing Skills for Middle Grades Students

Abstract

People of all ages have difficulty interpreting the information they read online. The contemporary media environment grants the public access to an unprecedented amount of information, and virtual learning during the COVID-19 pandemic has necessitated a better understanding of that technology and students’ utilization of such tools. It is widely known that students of today have access to a wealth of information on the internet, but a virtual school year has revealed that 1) students at home using internet searches for school will often select the first answer they find when searching for information and 2) students generally believe what they read on the internet and social media to be true, suggesting a need in secondary education for teaching media literacy and sourcing skills. This article will examine this necessity of teaching these skills in Health and Physical Education, starting in middle grades.