Students investigate how the pursuit of knowledge is shaped, shared, distorted, or suppressed across humanities, math, and science, using historical case studies, scientific discoveries, and media analysis to examine who controls information and why. Through source analysis, modeling, data interpretation, Socratic Seminars, and coaching from a journalist or media literacy partner, they study how propaganda, persecution, and selective storytelling influence public understanding, civic decisions, and relationships to land and communities. Over the semester, students build a multimedia portfolio and museum-style evidence trail connecting the American Revolution, The Crucible, westward expansion, the Civil War era, and examples of scientific ideas that were challenged or discredited as new knowledge emerged. The experience prepares students to communicate evidence clearly, revise their thinking, and explain how knowledge can be used to uncover truth or reinforce power.

Students will analyze primary and secondary sources from the American Revolution, The Crucible, Manifest Destiny, and case studies of contested scientific discoveries to identify claims, evidence, perspective, hidden motives, propaganda, and misinformation. They will investigate how the pursuit of knowledge is advanced or blocked when power controls information, including impacts on westward expansion, new states entering the Union, Indigenous nations, Great Plains ecosystems, and the acceptance or persecution of scientific ideas. Students will use maps, timelines, scale data, Earth-sun-moon models, and source comparison to connect humanities inquiry with math and science reasoning about evidence, patterns, and information dissemination. They will strengthen fact-checking, media literacy, discussion, and evidence-based writing skills through Socratic Seminars, caption revision, portfolio reflection, and collaboration with a journalist or media literacy partner to create an accurate public walking gallery and multimedia campaign.

Students will create an ongoing multimedia portfolio that includes source analyses, annotated maps and timelines, fact-check checks, Socratic Seminar reflections, revised evidence-based captions, and simple data displays or models that connect misinformation in history to scientific discoveries, Earth systems, and patterns of information spread. In teams, they will build station-based evidence boards that trace hidden motives, propaganda, persecution of ideas, and impacts across the American Revolution, The Crucible, Manifest Destiny, the Civil War era, and effects on Indigenous nations, the Great Plains ecosystem, and changing scientific understanding. They will also produce a short multimedia campaign piece, such as a video, podcast, or digital slide story, shaped with feedback from a journalist or media literacy partner and supported by visualized evidence, scale comparisons, or Earth-sun-moon/solar system models where relevant. The culminating product is the Truth Trail Showcase, a walking gallery of maps, source excerpts, captions, data visuals, scientific models, reflection snapshots, and action ideas for responsible knowledge-sharing and land stewardship presented to community visitors.

Open with a cross-disciplinary gallery walk that mixes provocative headlines, political cartoons, land ads, courtroom excerpts from The Crucible, astronomy diagrams, early scientific models, and short data displays, asking students to note the message, the evidence used, who benefits, and what information may be distorted or suppressed. Follow with a whole-group debrief that introduces the essential questions about pursuing knowledge and what happens when power controls or manipulates it across history, media, and science. Then teams complete a “fact, model, or framing?” challenge with a journalist or media literacy partner, sorting historical and scientific sources by claim, evidence, perspective, data use, and hidden motive. Close by previewing the Truth Trail Showcase and multimedia portfolio, where students will build evidence boards, captions, maps, and QR audio commentary that trace how misinformation and the pursuit of knowledge shape communities, land, and scientific understanding.

Host a Truth Trail Showcase as a walking gallery where visitors move through student evidence boards featuring maps, source excerpts, revised captions, data displays, and reflection snapshots that connect misinformation in history, scientific discovery, and the pursuit of knowledge. Invite families, other classes, and the journalist or media literacy partner to question students about hidden motives, propaganda, persecution of new ideas, and the impacts on communities, ecosystems, and public understanding of science. Add a student-led media and science corner where teams share one multimedia portfolio piece, one model or visual explaining a science concept, and one math-based representation of how information spread or changed over time. Include a feedback wall with sticky-note questions and comments on clarity, accuracy, interdisciplinary connections, and the relevance of students’ claims today.