Students in the Cornell School District are going to be able to tell “fake news” from credible information thanks to a $20,000 grant from the nonprofit News Literacy Project.
The two-year grant will enable Cornell school teachers to become experts in media literacy and incorporate that knowledge into lesson plans for students K-12.
Cornell’s fellowship team includes Kristopher Hupp, director of technology and instructional innovation; Miriam Klein, electives department chair, K-12 librarian, and an English language arts teacher; and Amy Palo, a social studies teacher and department chair. Palo was named the 2022 history teacher of the year by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History and in 2018 was named a James Madison Memorial Foundation Fellow.
“As teachers who are trying to make sure students are ready to be active, engaged members of society, it is important that they have the skills needed to understand information and to identify misinformation,” Palo said via release. “With the emergence of deep fake videos and AI-generated text, the skills needed to engage with technology are even more important.”
Two other schools were accepted into the program for the 2023-2024 school year; Bloomfield Hills Schools in Michigan and Gunnison Watershed District in Colorado.
Five other districts are in their second year of the fellowship; Las Cruces Public Schools in New Mexico, Iowa City Community School District in Iowa, Canyons School District in Utah, North Salem Central School District in New York and the Greater Albany Public Schools in Oregon.