About the Project
What we aim to do
In 2016 researchers from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Education published their findings from a year long study on how well students from middle school to college age, in 12 US States could evaluate online sources of information. More than 7,800 students took part and the results showed that they struggled to distinguish ads from articles, neutral sources from biased ones and real stories from fake ones.
The objectives of the Charlotte Project are:
1.. To provide students between the ages of 15 to 18 with the tools to enable them to navigate the maze of news, blogs, commentary and opinion disseminated on the web and via social media and help them to critically analyse and question what they are reading
2.. To help young people to stay safe online, identify radicalism and extremism and engage with current events in a proactive and positive manner.
3.. To enable young people to engage with journalists, giving them a better understanding of the nature of the job and inspiring them to consider journalism as a career.
How do we plan to do it
Through free news literacy and critical thinking workshops. We work closely with The Thomson Reuters Foundation to develop content and the workshops are delivered by trained Thomson Reuters journalists. The workshops are mainly group based exercises in order to maximise engagement. You can see pictures from some of our workshops on our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/charlotteproject.org/.