Middle School
How can real images mislead people?
When students think of visual misinformation, they may think of edited photos, deepfakes, or AI-generated images. These are incredibly important problems. Yet, one common form of visual misinformation is a real photo paired with misleading context! This lesson goes beyond doctored or manipulated images and discusses how the caption, crop, and context of a real image can also mislead.
Students aim to:
Explain how captions influence interpretation.
Identify what information is missing from an image alone.
Distinguish between what they can observe and what they can infer.
Ask stronger verification questions before trusting or sharing visual media.