ABOUT COMMUNITY CONNECTIONS: Community Connections is a lesson collection designed for adult learners and community colleges, with the goal of inspiring student civic action. This might be respectful debate or conversation about a local issue, planning a community event, or a creative project that helps connect local, national and global issues.
To use this lesson: First, watch the video and answer the questions below as a warm up. Next, choose one or more of the activities under "Take Action" that best fits your classroom. Or, use the segment above to inspire your own original classroom activities — the spirit of these lessons is to connect current events to actions that make your community a better place for everyone!
SUMMARY
Can conspiracy theorists be shaken from their firm — and unsubstantiated — beliefs? Podcaster Zach Mack wanted to find out, so he turned to someone he’s debated about conspiracies for years: his father. He tells what happened in “Alternate Realties,” a three-part podcast from NPR. Mack and science writer David Robert Grimes join John Yang to discuss.
View the transcript of the story.
WARM-UP QUESTIONS
- What are some of the conspiracy theories used to introduce this segment?
- Who is Zach Mack, and what is his background?
- How did Mack's father come to embrace conspiracy theories?
- Why does the media environment, including social media, contribute to conspiracy theories, according to David Robert Grimes?
- What are some of the reasons why people are drawn to conspiracy theories, according to Grimes?
FOCUS QUESTIONS
How would you define "critical thinking"? Do you think using social media and online resources can be a way to improve critical thinking, or do you think these resources tend to decrease critical thinking? Why do you believe so?
Media literacy: In a section of this segment (at the 5:18 mark), Zach Mack's father argues that attempts to combat misinformation are really attempts to limit free speech. Do you believe that attempts to combat conspiracy theories and misinformation can result in threats to freedom of speech? Why or why not?
TAKE ACTION
If you could design an app to help news consumers identify misinformation, how would you do it? What features would it include? Use this activity to plan out your app.
You might also want to use this activity work as a classroom to find reliable news sources. Which use AI to enhance their product? Do you think it adds or detracts from the news to use AI images and content?
Finally, you can use this activity to track your own media diet. What in your media consumption seems most likely to promote misinformation?
You can also use this guide for creating a pop-up translation clinic to help the community combat misinformation in languages other than English.
You might also want to check out this video from Student Reporting Labs on discussing conspiracies with friends and family. You can find more from the series Moments of Truth here.
This project was funded under the 2024 Leonore Annenberg Civic Mission of the Nation Initiative, sponsored by the Leonore Annenberg Institute for Civics. LAIC is a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania.
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