As students join the group time, distribute supplies (or invite students to have them ready at home).
Ask students to number their papers from 1–5. Explain that they are going to take a quick quiz. They are to write B next to the number if they think it is a statement that is a “believable fact” and U next to the number if they believe it is an “unbelievable fact.”
When all students are ready with their papers numbered and have their pencil or pen in hand, recite the following five statements, pausing after each one to give students time to write a “B” for believable or a “U” for unbelievable. Do not read the answers to the quiz until all the statements have been given to and judged by the students.
- Eating salt on pineapple makes it taste sweeter because it suppresses the bitterness in pineapple.
Because salt itself is not sweet, this fact feels “unbelievable.” - The fruit portion of peaches and nectarines is the same. The only difference between the two is that peaches have fuzz on their skin.
Because peaches and nectarines taste incredibly similar, this fact is believable. - Humans and giraffes (and all mammals) have the same amount of bones in their necks.
Giraffes have much longer necks than humans do, so this sounds “unbelievable.” - On average, clouds weigh over one million pounds because of all the water they contain.
Clouds hold a lot of water, so fact number four is believable
After students have finished rating the facts presented as believable or unbelievable, inform them that all of the facts were true. Ask students if it’s difficult for them to believe that all of the facts presented were believable. Share that they definitely were true facts, believable or not! If they want to check sources, the website where these facts were found is listed below.
Play the following video for your students [2:36; stop at 1:45]: How to avoid falling for deepfakes
We need to be careful to discern what is true from what is not true. Having watched this video, we may be skeptical the next time we watch a video on the Internet…and that’s OK!
- What interested you the most about this video? (Answers will vary. Invite various students to share.)
- Why might a video found on the Internet that you watch in the future turn out to be misleading and contain falsehoods? (According to this video, the technology is changing in such a way that when you watch a person talking in a video about something, you may have to question if that is truly him or her speaking. You also may need to question if the words you heard were actually spoken by that person or if an actor put those words in this person’s mouth.)
Today we’ll delve into the idea of faith and what we’re called upon to believe. Let’s find out more.
