Companion resource for the video:

Yaku’s Media Lab: Can We Trust What We See?

Media Literacy • AI Literacy • Digital Citizenship • Critical Thinking | Grades 3–6

Help students become thoughtful, curious media detectives with this engaging companion resource for Yaku’s Media Lab: Can We Trust What We See?

Every day, children encounter photographs, videos, advertisements, memes, social media posts, and increasingly convincing AI-generated content. But how can they decide what to trust?

This ready-to-use resource helps students explore an essential idea: seeing something doesn’t always mean we understand the whole story.

Through Yaku’s adventures, students investigate how framing, cropping, editing, missing context, visual perception, and AI-generated media can influence what we believe. Rather than teaching students to distrust everything they see, the activities encourage a healthier habit: pause, ask questions, look for context, and investigate.

Students will explore:

How a real photograph can still leave important information outside the frame
How editing and the order of video clips can change the meaning of an event
How our brains use expectations and visual clues to interpret what we see
Why our first interpretation can sometimes be wrong
How AI can create convincing images, voices, and videos of events that never happened
The difference between something looking real and having evidence that it actually happened
How to check important claims before believing or sharing them
At the heart of the resource are Yaku’s Three Questions:

Who made this?

What might be missing?

Can I check it somewhere else?

These simple questions give students a practical media-literacy strategy they can begin using beyond the classroom.

What’s Included

The companion resource includes teacher guidance, pre- and post-viewing discussion questions, viewing activities, media-literacy worksheets, framing and editing exercises, visual-perception activities, age-appropriate AI and synthetic-media activities, media detective challenges, reflection prompts, a student reference card, an exit ticket, extension activities, and an answer key.

Perfect For

Use this resource for media literacy, digital citizenship, AI literacy, visual literacy, ELA, technology lessons, library/media-center instruction, critical-thinking units, or discussions about online information and misinformation.

It can be taught as a complete lesson alongside the film or divided into shorter activities across several class periods.

Recommended Grades: 3–6

Skills: Media Literacy, Digital Citizenship, AI Literacy, Visual Literacy, Source Evaluation, Critical Thinking

Format: Video Companion + Printable Student Activities + Teacher Guide

The Big Idea

Yaku doesn’t finish his adventure believing that images are bad or that nothing can be trusted.

He learns something more useful:

Don’t believe everything.

Don’t distrust everything.

Investigate.