Your students have probably heard a lot about the coronavirus and its impact. However, chances are good that not all of it was true. After its detection in China’s Hubei province in late 2019, the coronavirus ballooned to more than 100,000 cases worldwide, generating massive media coverage—as well as a torrent of misinformation and conspiracy theories.
With the rise of fake news, it’s more important than ever to equip our students with the 21st century skills to separate fact from opinion. One way to build information literacy is to model reliable sources; and newsworthy current events can provide us with an opportunity to test our students’ prior assumptions.
The coronavirus outbreak is definitely serious—but how does it compare to past epidemics, and what is the actual risk to people in the United States? Investigate the origins, spread, and current status of the coronavirus epidemic with this reference article from ABC-CLIO’s Issues database:
Issues: Understanding Controversy and Society is a platform for investigating current national and global issues from criminal justice to environmental conflict to ethics in technology and medicine. Click here to activate your free preview of this database and gain access to more than 7,300 primary and secondary sources, inquiry-driven critical thinking modules, and perspective essays by leading scholars on the background, status, and outlook for over 160 contemporary issues.
