Natural Sciences 191CNS12 - FYS-Fake News-during pandemic

Facebook and Buzzfeed and Fox News, oh my! The coronavirus pandemic has made medical experts of everyone. So how do you understand and identify legitimate and reliable sources in a time when academic reports are buried in polarized, sensationalist articles? In this seminar, we will familiarize ourselves with and deconstruct the complexity of peer-reviewed articles surrounding Covid-19. Together, we will explore different experimental methods, how collected data is represented in figures, and how those figures are interpreted by scientists, journalists, and the general public. This course will enable you to join the conversation as an advocate for science and a critical eye for misleading media.

Open to Natural Sciences Freshman with a declared major or on the Natural Sciences Exploratory Track. Freshmen Only