In How Do Journalists Earn Our Trust?, host Radzi Chinyanganya explains how journalists can earn our trust in a world of viral social media and misinformation. He highlights the importance of accuracy in the story of a rescue operation of a little girl named Frida Sofia after a devastating earthquake in September of 2017 in Mexico. International media, including The New York Times and the Associated Press, picked up the story and Frida went viral. In the end, the story wasn’t based on fact, and no one named Frida had ever even attended the school. Being transparent and admitting their mistakes can help journalists earn trust. This video is excerpted from BBC’s My World, a program created for teenagers eager to learn more about the important stories shaping our world.
Everyone makes mistakes, and that includes journalists. Introduce your students to the concept of trust and transparency in journalism. In this lesson, they’ll look at examples of mistakes and wrong information, as well as the ways in which news outlets can correct errors.
In North American Wood Ducklings Take a Trust Fall, narrator Gordon Buchanan describes how baby ducks hatch inside the hollow of a tree over 60 feet above the ground. Though they are safe there, they must get down to the water to feed. The mother calls to them from the water below and the babies, unable to fly, survive the long fall by stretching out their bodies. They then waddle to the water where they are safe. This video is excerpted from BBC's Animal Babies, a heartwarming show that follows the first breaths, first steps, and first feeds of some adorable baby animals, revealing the challenges they face to survive in some of the toughest but most beautiful places on the planet.
“Flush with cash” might need to turn into “flush that cash” if fake money keeps popping up! Counterfeit cash used to be a problem for mostly shops and retailers, but there’s been a recent rise in fake cash popping up in the home! That doesn’t mean that more of your neighborhood pals have decided to print their own money, or that fake bills are appearing out of thin air, but enough of it is in circulation that everyday people are going to make a purchase or deposit money with counterfeit cash, very possibly by accident.
In 2024, there were 99,000 fake notes in circulation. Last year, that doubled to 200,000, partly because of a rise in organized crime. While the fake bills make their way between hands and households and businesses, people become increasingly reliant on electronic methods of payment (like cards and Venmo), so they fall a bit out of practice of knowing what physical, paper money looks and feels like.
Unfortunately, it’s not always the people making counterfeit bills that are punished. Shops and retailers are hurting, and customers go into banks and post offices to deposit money that can’t be accepted because it ends up being fake.
In How Data Transformed Trading, discover how data became a powerful tool for understanding human behavior — and making big money! Meet David Harding, a science graduate who shook up the chaotic world of trading by using math and data to predict price patterns. While others trusted their gut, Harding believed data and the right computer algorithms could crack the code of the stock market. Today, his company invests billions, proving that smart data (and a little science) can change the game! This video is excerpted from BBC’s Horizon: The Age of Big Data, which explores how data has shaped industries, economies, and human behavior.
In How Do Journalists Find the News?, host Radzi Chinyanganya explores how journalists find and gather their news, ask the right questions, and let their curiosity drive them. Today, journalists still look to trusted sources, correspondents, and news agencies, but they also use online tools like social media to discover what the public is talking about. Then they send teams to the scene to talk to eyewitnesses, emergency services, and to gather statements. This video is excerpted from BBC’s My World, a program created for teenagers eager to learn more about the important stories shaping our world.
In What Is News?, host Radzi Chinyanganya introduces the concept of news: its history, purpose, and its potential downside. From its earliest iterations, news provides the information needed for people to make decisions and stay safe. Today, technology allows us to learn information in real time on both a local and global scale. It can be overwhelming to know what to give our attention to and what is real or fake, so it’s necessary to be a smart consumer of news and have trusted sources. This video is excerpted from BBC’s My World, a program created for teenagers eager to learn more about the important stories shaping our world.
In Marco Polo, host Joanna Lumley introduces the remarkable journey of Marco Polo, who traveled for 17 years across Asia. Marco, along with his father and uncle, were trusted envoys of the 13th-Century Mongolian emperor Kublai Khan. They were given a tablet guaranteeing their safe passage through Khan's empire. During this time, spices were highly prized, making the Silk Road an essential trade route for connecting Asia to Europe. This video is excerpted from BBC’s Joanna Lumley’s Silk Road Adventure, a documentary series uncovering the rich history and cultural treasures of the Silk Road.
It's tempting to think that seeing is believing, but that's not always the case. When scrolling the internet, it's important to put on your skepticism hat. There's a lot of fake stuff out there, and some of it is convincing.
For example, a Facebook post appeared to come from York Council — the local government office for the city of York, England. It asked people with spare rooms to house asylum seekers (people who have fled their home country and are asking a government for protection). The post wasn't real, but it spread quickly across Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X, and YouTube. BBC Verify, the BBC's fact-checking team, estimated it could have reached more than a million people.
Misinformation like this can cause real problems, especially when it spreads about sensitive subjects like asylum seekers. Repeated exposure to false information can also make people question what's true at all — damaging trust between people and communities.
So how can you tell what's fake? Even careful readers are finding it harder to spot, while fake content is getting easier to make — a dangerous combination. The fake council post looked convincing: it had an official logo, professional-sounding text, and even a real email address. But a few small details gave it away: the logo was slightly distorted, some words were misspelled, parts of the image looked unnatural, and the AI-generated hands had too many fingers.
Those details are easy to miss when scrolling quickly — but learning to spot them is exactly what makes the difference between falling for a fake and catching one.
Why did the various wildlife species cross the road? To test the new heathland bridge!
It may look like a bridge that’s just unfinished, but the dirt and grass butting up against the pavement is very intentional.
This heathland bridge separating two commons is the first of its kind to include a network of natural routes that encourage species to reunite for the first time in over 40 years. Man, we would not remember ANYONE’S names! The bridge is home to mosses and vegetative grounds, as well as sand that could be a habitat to species like sand lizards, adders, foxes, deer, and bugs. Lots of bugs.
The bridge connects the heathland on either side, which the Wildlife Trusts are working to restore, so the aim of the bridge is to let wildlife move from side to side, building up the population and their resilience. But, it wasn’t as simple as leaving the bridge half-paved. Crews had to create the heathland by distributing acidic sand before adding areas of ground taken directly from larger heathland sites.
Your parents or grandparents probably talk about growing up outside — riding bikes, climbing trees, scraping up knees. Turns out, they were onto something.
The Wildlife Trusts, a UK conservation group, just wrapped up "30 Days Wild," the UK's biggest nature challenge. Millions of people, including tens of thousands of schools, took part by doing one "wild" activity a day — noticing, appreciating, or exploring nature. The Lancashire Wildlife Trust runs a similar effort called The Greenhouse Project, where people learn to grow food and care for nature together.
The idea: the more connected people feel to nature, the more likely they are to protect it. But a recent poll found that while almost all adults have fond memories of playing outside as kids, nearly half now spend just three hours outside per week — less than 30 minutes a day.
If you’re ever scrolling online and find that you can’t believe your eyes, you might just want to trust your instinct. Deepfakes are AI-generated or AI-manipulated content (such as pictures, videos, or audio clips) that is designed to look or sound real. Nowadays, making them is a lot easier than it used to be, thanks to access to free, public tools online.
To make a deepfake of someone speaking, the AI only needs a picture and about 10 seconds of audio recording. The AI identifies facial landmarks (such as the eyes, nose, and mouth), predicts how those features would move while speaking, then synchronizes those movements with the generated audio to create a pretty realistic-looking video.
The results aren’t perfect. There are often repetitive face movements and mispronunciations, but they’re still close enough to be dangerous and spread misinformation. But, deepfakes can be great if used correctly! For instance, if someone has lost their voice, deepfake technology can recreate it.
In How Do Journalists Earn Our Trust?, host Radzi Chinyanganya explains how journalists can earn our trust in a world of viral social media and misinformation. He highlights the importance of accuracy in the story of a rescue operation of a little girl named Frida Sofia after a devastating earthquake in September of 2017 in Mexico. International media, including The New York Times and the Associated Press, picked up the story and Frida went viral. In the end, the story wasn’t based on fact, and no one named Frida had ever even attended the school. Being transparent and admitting their mistakes can help journalists earn trust. This video is excerpted from BBC’s My World, a program created for teenagers eager to learn more about the important stories shaping our world.
Everyone makes mistakes, and that includes journalists. Introduce your students to the concept of trust and transparency in journalism. In this lesson, they’ll look at examples of mistakes and wrong information, as well as the ways in which news outlets can correct errors.
In North American Wood Ducklings Take a Trust Fall, narrator Gordon Buchanan describes how baby ducks hatch inside the hollow of a tree over 60 feet above the ground. Though they are safe there, they must get down to the water to feed. The mother calls to them from the water below and the babies, unable to fly, survive the long fall by stretching out their bodies. They then waddle to the water where they are safe. This video is excerpted from BBC's Animal Babies, a heartwarming show that follows the first breaths, first steps, and first feeds of some adorable baby animals, revealing the challenges they face to survive in some of the toughest but most beautiful places on the planet.
“Flush with cash” might need to turn into “flush that cash” if fake money keeps popping up! Counterfeit cash used to be a problem for mostly shops and retailers, but there’s been a recent rise in fake cash popping up in the home! That doesn’t mean that more of your neighborhood pals have decided to print their own money, or that fake bills are appearing out of thin air, but enough of it is in circulation that everyday people are going to make a purchase or deposit money with counterfeit cash, very possibly by accident.
In 2024, there were 99,000 fake notes in circulation. Last year, that doubled to 200,000, partly because of a rise in organized crime. While the fake bills make their way between hands and households and businesses, people become increasingly reliant on electronic methods of payment (like cards and Venmo), so they fall a bit out of practice of knowing what physical, paper money looks and feels like.
Unfortunately, it’s not always the people making counterfeit bills that are punished. Shops and retailers are hurting, and customers go into banks and post offices to deposit money that can’t be accepted because it ends up being fake.
In How Data Transformed Trading, discover how data became a powerful tool for understanding human behavior — and making big money! Meet David Harding, a science graduate who shook up the chaotic world of trading by using math and data to predict price patterns. While others trusted their gut, Harding believed data and the right computer algorithms could crack the code of the stock market. Today, his company invests billions, proving that smart data (and a little science) can change the game! This video is excerpted from BBC’s Horizon: The Age of Big Data, which explores how data has shaped industries, economies, and human behavior.
In How Do Journalists Find the News?, host Radzi Chinyanganya explores how journalists find and gather their news, ask the right questions, and let their curiosity drive them. Today, journalists still look to trusted sources, correspondents, and news agencies, but they also use online tools like social media to discover what the public is talking about. Then they send teams to the scene to talk to eyewitnesses, emergency services, and to gather statements. This video is excerpted from BBC’s My World, a program created for teenagers eager to learn more about the important stories shaping our world.
In What Is News?, host Radzi Chinyanganya introduces the concept of news: its history, purpose, and its potential downside. From its earliest iterations, news provides the information needed for people to make decisions and stay safe. Today, technology allows us to learn information in real time on both a local and global scale. It can be overwhelming to know what to give our attention to and what is real or fake, so it’s necessary to be a smart consumer of news and have trusted sources. This video is excerpted from BBC’s My World, a program created for teenagers eager to learn more about the important stories shaping our world.
In Marco Polo, host Joanna Lumley introduces the remarkable journey of Marco Polo, who traveled for 17 years across Asia. Marco, along with his father and uncle, were trusted envoys of the 13th-Century Mongolian emperor Kublai Khan. They were given a tablet guaranteeing their safe passage through Khan's empire. During this time, spices were highly prized, making the Silk Road an essential trade route for connecting Asia to Europe. This video is excerpted from BBC’s Joanna Lumley’s Silk Road Adventure, a documentary series uncovering the rich history and cultural treasures of the Silk Road.
It's tempting to think that seeing is believing, but that's not always the case. When scrolling the internet, it's important to put on your skepticism hat. There's a lot of fake stuff out there, and some of it is convincing.
For example, a Facebook post appeared to come from York Council — the local government office for the city of York, England. It asked people with spare rooms to house asylum seekers (people who have fled their home country and are asking a government for protection). The post wasn't real, but it spread quickly across Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X, and YouTube. BBC Verify, the BBC's fact-checking team, estimated it could have reached more than a million people.
Misinformation like this can cause real problems, especially when it spreads about sensitive subjects like asylum seekers. Repeated exposure to false information can also make people question what's true at all — damaging trust between people and communities.
So how can you tell what's fake? Even careful readers are finding it harder to spot, while fake content is getting easier to make — a dangerous combination. The fake council post looked convincing: it had an official logo, professional-sounding text, and even a real email address. But a few small details gave it away: the logo was slightly distorted, some words were misspelled, parts of the image looked unnatural, and the AI-generated hands had too many fingers.
Those details are easy to miss when scrolling quickly — but learning to spot them is exactly what makes the difference between falling for a fake and catching one.
Why did the various wildlife species cross the road? To test the new heathland bridge!
It may look like a bridge that’s just unfinished, but the dirt and grass butting up against the pavement is very intentional.
This heathland bridge separating two commons is the first of its kind to include a network of natural routes that encourage species to reunite for the first time in over 40 years. Man, we would not remember ANYONE’S names! The bridge is home to mosses and vegetative grounds, as well as sand that could be a habitat to species like sand lizards, adders, foxes, deer, and bugs. Lots of bugs.
The bridge connects the heathland on either side, which the Wildlife Trusts are working to restore, so the aim of the bridge is to let wildlife move from side to side, building up the population and their resilience. But, it wasn’t as simple as leaving the bridge half-paved. Crews had to create the heathland by distributing acidic sand before adding areas of ground taken directly from larger heathland sites.
Your parents or grandparents probably talk about growing up outside — riding bikes, climbing trees, scraping up knees. Turns out, they were onto something.
The Wildlife Trusts, a UK conservation group, just wrapped up "30 Days Wild," the UK's biggest nature challenge. Millions of people, including tens of thousands of schools, took part by doing one "wild" activity a day — noticing, appreciating, or exploring nature. The Lancashire Wildlife Trust runs a similar effort called The Greenhouse Project, where people learn to grow food and care for nature together.
The idea: the more connected people feel to nature, the more likely they are to protect it. But a recent poll found that while almost all adults have fond memories of playing outside as kids, nearly half now spend just three hours outside per week — less than 30 minutes a day.
If you’re ever scrolling online and find that you can’t believe your eyes, you might just want to trust your instinct. Deepfakes are AI-generated or AI-manipulated content (such as pictures, videos, or audio clips) that is designed to look or sound real. Nowadays, making them is a lot easier than it used to be, thanks to access to free, public tools online.
To make a deepfake of someone speaking, the AI only needs a picture and about 10 seconds of audio recording. The AI identifies facial landmarks (such as the eyes, nose, and mouth), predicts how those features would move while speaking, then synchronizes those movements with the generated audio to create a pretty realistic-looking video.
The results aren’t perfect. There are often repetitive face movements and mispronunciations, but they’re still close enough to be dangerous and spread misinformation. But, deepfakes can be great if used correctly! For instance, if someone has lost their voice, deepfake technology can recreate it.