Fact-Check Challenge — Digital Futures

🎯 Learning Objectives

✓Identify hallucinations and inaccuracies in AI-generated content
✓Use cross-referencing techniques to verify AI outputs
✓Explain why AI sometimes produces plausible-sounding false information

📚 Key Vocabulary

Hallucination

AI confidently stating something false — not lying, just wrong prediction

Cross-reference

Checking a claim against a second reliable, independent source

Primary source

Original evidence (government stats, published research, official websites)

Bias

Systematic skew in AI outputs due to patterns in the training data

⏱️ Lesson Timing (50 mins)

🪝

Hook

5 mins

Teacher has planted 5 "AI fact cards" around the room — some true, some hallucinated. Students read and vote true/false. Reveal.

👨‍🏫

Teach

10 mins

•Why hallucination happens: AI predicts likely words, not verified facts
•Types of AI errors: fabricated facts, wrong dates, invented sources, biased summaries
•How to verify: BBC, gov.uk, NHS, academic sources, Wikipedia (for leads not facts)
•The "too smooth" warning: AI is never uncertain unless you ask it to be
•Bias: AI trained on human text inherits human biases

🛠️

Create

40 mins

Students are given a topic related to another subject (e.g. the causes of WW1, climate change facts, a historical person). They must: (1) Submit a prompt asking for an AI summary of the topic via the Teacher AI Station — the teacher runs it and returns the AI's response (under-13 safe; no live AI use). (2) Fact-check every single claim in the returned summary — mark correct (✓), wrong (✗), or can't verify (?). (3) Find reliable sources for at least 3 claims. (4) Write an improved, verified paragraph. Document in "Fact-Check Worksheet".

Tools:

Teacher AI Station (submission)BingBBC / gov.ukFact-Check Worksheet

📢

5 mins

What was the most surprising wrong thing AI said? Build a hall-of-shame list.

🔧 Tools & Resources

Teacher AI Station (via your assignment)

https://bbc.co.uk/news

🤖 AI Angle

Critical AI evaluation — the most important skill for AI use. AI summaries are run by the teacher via the Teacher AI Station and returned for students to fact-check, so under-13 students practise scrutinising AI output without using a live AI service.

📝 Evidence of Learning

Annotated AI output with verified/corrected claims + improved paragraph

📚 Homework

Choose something you're studying in another subject and write the prompt you would give an AI about it. Research the topic using a reliable source and list 3 specific claims you would fact-check if an AI answered. Write a short note on how you would verify each.

⏱️ 20 mins

♿ Differentiation

Support (for students who need help)

Pre-highlighted AI text — students only need to check the underlined claims

Extension (for advanced learners)

Research a high-profile case where AI-generated misinformation caused real harm. Write a 150-word report.

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