For Students

There's nothing quite like watching whales on a sunny day on Lake Michigan. Except there aren't whales in the Great Lakes. This web site is completely bogus, but contains enough information to make it look and sound real. You can help your students become more aware that everything on the Internet isn't real by using this site. This site was used as a resource for a writer from Michigan Studies Weekly(tm). An article was printed in the weekly student magazine and sent to schools in Michigan who subscribed to the weekly magazine. The error was pointed out by a Michigan teacher. It was then report in a article from Associated Press. After the truth was know the Michigan Studies Weekly issued a retraction.

One Quick Activity

Tell your students that they are going to visit a new web site. Their task is to gather as many facts as they can from the site. You may want to tell them that they will only have ten minutes to write down as many facts as they can. Dividing the class into teams may help create some Competition. After they have listed the facts have them read their lists to the class. Continue until all the teams report or until someone states that they don't believe what they have read.

Activity Two

Divide your class into teams. Tell them they are going to evaluate a web site. Give half the teams one site and the other half the whale site. Let them list all the positive and negative aspects of the site. Continue the conversation until someone discovers the truth or you tell them that this is a hoax.

Whale Web Site http://www.geocities.com/lakemichiganwhales/

Or view a PDF copy of the site.

Student Page