Fact can be enhanced and altered in the era of social media. Recognizing this reality, the Kokomo Howard County Public Library is weeding through twisted and embellished words to help Kokomo teens discern truth from fiction at the first ever Mythbusters and Urban Legends event scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, at the library’s main branch, 220 N. Union. St.
KHCLPL Teen Librarian Melissa Wheelock said teens see tainted tales every day on their Facebook and Twitter newsfeeds. She said even when they are searching for the cold hard facts they can find themselves caught in a web of confusion and inaccuracies.
“Kids can’t go a single day without running into a myth or urban legend on Facebook posts, they have to learn they can’t take those words for certain and need to learn how to look at [such things] with skepticism,” she said.
But busting myths doesn’t have to provoke boredom.
Wheelock said KHCPL is making sure the night will be a blast by making the program a game-show style event.
“There will be categories and teams and it will be a way for kids to have with identifying how true or how false something is while helping them learn not everything you read off Facebook is fact,” Wheelock said. “It will be a little bit like Jeopardy.”
The twists and turns of living in a world with up-to-the-minute updates can be fun to keep up with, but as Wheelock said, it can skew reality for the next generation’s minds.
“Literacy is more than being able to read, it’s also being a skeptical reader; knowing how to look more into something when you read and not believe everything you read,” Wheelock said. “It’s important to prepare our students to be informed adults. They are our future voters, future leaders and they need to know how to discern fact from fiction. It benefits all of us in the long run.”
For more information, contact KHCPL at 765-457-3242.
Local News
Urban legends decoded at library
KHCPL deciphers fact from fiction with teens.
- Local News
-
-
“We’re all in it together”
Peru Police Chief Jonie Kennedy recently joined another elite group after she was appointed Peru police chief in April.
Out of the nearly 450 municipal police departments in the state, she’s now just one of around seven female chiefs. -
Legislature had little taste for alcohol bills
When it comes to alcohol, the 2013 legislative session may be marked more by what it didn’t do to boost booze sales than what it did.
Repeating recent history, the General Assembly turned away efforts to expand Sunday alcohol sales and allow gas stations and convenience stores to sell cold beer – the latter of which has prompted a lawsuit. -
Summer Place Car Show wheels in for its 11th year
It started with a broken down car on U.S. 31. Decades later, 500-plus cars roll in and rewind time for the 11th Annual Summer Place Car Show.
Jim Richardson founded the event as a way to raise money for his family’s foundation, A Home for Every Child. The foundation, which raises money to help children in need of adoption, is one that’s close to Richardson’s heart just as his love for the 1950s is close to his roots. -
New purpose for St. Joseph Center
For 42 years, Chris Cleveland has had a special relationship with his developmentally disabled brother, Bally. He created the Bally Foundation last year to connect people with special needs and their caregivers to services and resources within 75 miles of Indianapolis. Now Cleveland wants to create a new resource, a community for families caring for special needs members.
-
Question Time: Dinner for four
We received several dozen very interesting responses Friday when we asked our readers to answer the following question: “If you could have dinner with any three people living or otherwise who would it be and why?” As a result, a few us here at the Kokomo Tribune decided to give it a try as well.
-
Bullying reporting now required
Oliver Jackson — known in the music world as DjBigO317 — remembers being bullied by the kids on his high school football team for being small.
He told his coaches about it, but they brushed it off and told him to do the same.
Now, his 6-year-old daughter is battling issues with bullies at her school in Indianapolis, and he won’t let it go.
He is on a crusade to end bullying, and he’s taking the message beyond his daughter’s school. -
The bully bashers speak out
Nineteen-year-old Trenton Lewis wants to change the message hip-hop music is sending to kids across the country.
The Kokomo High School graduate envisions songs that inspire change and songs that promote safer schools instead of ones that glorify drugs and violence. He wants to push the negativity out of music. - Bullying statistics - May 19, 2013
-
State to spend $2 million to clean up voter rolls
Indiana’s bloated voter registration rolls, which officials say make elections more susceptible to fraud, will soon come under more scrutiny by the state.
- Public Eye - May 19, 2013
- More Local News Headlines
-
Raw: Accused US Spy Reportedly Leaves Russia
AP CEO: Records Seizure 'Unconstitutional'
Fatal Hot Air Balloon Accident in Turkey
Tornadoes, Storms Strike Midwest
'Babyland': Camp Lejeune's Toxic Legacy?
Raw: Heavy Tornado Damage in Shawnee, Okla
Probe Begins After Conn. Commuter Trains Crash
NTSB Begins Investigation Into Conn. Train Crash
Lotto Fever Sweeps the Country
Coffee Run Leads to Hatchet Hitchhiker Arrest
Fmr. IRS Head Insists No Politics in Targeting
CDC: Fecal Bacteria Common in Swimming Pools
Could Tobacco Be the Next Biofuel?
Wash. State Releases Draft Rules for Legal Pot
