Critical Thinking: Math in the Media: Finding Errors

Critical Thinking: Math in the Media: Finding Errors

Witness your students transform into math detectives with this fun educational tool! Students can practice both math skills and media literacy at the same time as they read real headlines and try to decide if they make sense mathematically.

This unique teaching resource uses real headlines and quotes taken directly from various media sources. It presents learners with an opportunity to scrutinize these bits of information for mathematical inaccuracies.

How to Use:

1. Teachers can project these pages on an interactive whiteboard or print them out as worksheets—providing flexibility to adapt the delivery according to classroom needs or personal preferences.

2. Allow students to work together in small groups or pairs to look at the headlines and decide if there are any math errors. Students need to explain what the error is if they find one. Topics covered include large numbers, percentages, and large number multiplication (in the millions).

3. Come back together as a class to discuss and share ideas. You could have individual students come up to the board to explain their thought process and strategies.

4. You could use several headlines in one lesson, or use them one at a time as a warm-up or hook for your math class.

5. An extension is provided for students to find (or create) their own headlines. You could have each student do this and present one each day for several weeks.

Grades to Use With:

These are designed to be used in middle school classrooms in grades 6-9 to enhance media literacy, critical thinking skills, and application of math skills. Math skills used include percentages, large numbers, and decimal millions.

What's Included:

A total of 10 pages:

Title Page

Instruction Page

6 Headlines (one per page): 4 have errors and 2 do not

Extension Page: Find your own headline!

Answer Key