News report · A photo, more than 3,000 forwards and a Year 8 class with a magnifying glass.
TORREALBA. On Thursday night a photo began to circulate in the village’s WhatsApp groups: a wolf, at night, next to the fountain in the main square, under the bakery sign. “Tonight, in Torrealba. Keep an eye on the children,” said the message. In less than a day it had been forwarded more than 3,000 times.
On Friday morning, the town hall received dozens of calls from worried residents. That same day, Begoña Arrieta, who teaches Spanish language and literature at the secondary school, swapped the lesson she had planned for a fact-checking exercise with her Year 8 students.
The first thing they did was ask an AI chatbot whether the photo was real. It replied that it was “authentic, with 95% probability”. “That’s where we learnt the first lesson,” explains Lucas, one of the students. “A tool can answer you very confidently and still be wrong. What it says isn’t proof: you have to check it.”
So they went down to the square with the photo on a phone. The real fountain has three spouts; the one in the photo has four. The bakery sign says “BAKERY”; the one in the photo says “BAKRY”, with slightly crooked letters. According to the teacher, warped text and details that don’t add up are common in images created with artificial intelligence. What’s more, the account that first posted the photo had been created the day before and had no other posts.
Asked by this newspaper, the biologist Íñigo Salcedo points out that in some areas wolves may come close to villages, especially in winter, “although it’s rare and they almost never get as far as a square”. No resident has seen the animal or found any tracks.
On Friday afternoon, the town hall published a notice: the photo was not taken in Torrealba. Class 8B, for its part, has made a poster with four questions to ask yourself before forwarding anything: Who posted it first? Do the details add up? Does any reliable source report it? And what if it isn’t true?
Activities
1 Detective Inference
What conclusion did the students get right? Tick the correct hypothesis.
- a) The photo was real, because an AI chatbot said it was authentic with 95% probability.
- b) The photo was real, because more than 3,000 people forwarded it and nobody in the village denied it all day.
- ✓c) The photo wasn’t taken in Torrealba’s square: it has details that don’t match the real square.
- d) The photo was fake because wolves never come close to villages, let alone into a square.
What is it based on? Copy or summarise the clue from the text that proves it.
Correct hypothesis: c). Exactly. It’s a conclusion based on checks, not on opinions or on what a tool says.
Key clue: “The fountain in the photo has four spouts and the one in the square has three; and its sign says “BAKRY” instead of “BAKERY”.” These are direct checks: they compared the photo with the real square and the details don’t match.
2 The Loom Order of events
Put the events in time order. Write the order number (1, 2, 3…) in each box.
- 2 The photo begins to circulate on WhatsApp.
- 3 The students ask a chatbot whether the photo is real.
- 1 The account that will post the photo is created.
- 4 The students compare the photo with the real square.
- 5 The town hall publishes a notice about the photo.
Correct order:
- The account that will post the photo is created.
- The photo begins to circulate on WhatsApp.
- The students ask a chatbot whether the photo is real.
- The students compare the photo with the real square.
- The town hall publishes a notice about the photo.
The account was created “the day before” the photo was posted on Thursday night. On Friday morning, in class, they first asked the chatbot and then went down to the square. The town hall’s notice came on Friday afternoon.
3 The Missing Page Coherence
A few days later, a follow-up story is published. Which one fits the report? Tick only one option.
- ✓a) The school hangs 8B’s poster at the entrance, with the four questions worth asking before forwarding a story or a photo.
- b) A resident produces the tracks the wolf left by the fountain, and the town hall withdraws the notice it published on Friday afternoon.
- c) The chatbot the students consulted explains that the photo was actually taken at night in Torrealba’s main square.
- d) Begoña Arrieta, the teacher, advises her students to trust what a chatbot says, because it’s quicker than going to check.
Answer: a). It fits what the report said about the poster the class had made.
- b) No resident had found any tracks, and the photo had details that don’t exist in the real square.
- c) The four-spout fountain and the “BAKRY” sign aren’t in Torrealba: the photo couldn’t have been taken there.
- d) The lesson of the class was the opposite: what a tool says has to be checked.
4 Spot the Contradiction Literal reading
Three statements don’t fit the report. Put an X next to the 3 statements that don’t fit the text.
- a) The photo began to circulate on a Thursday night.That’s how the report begins.
- ✗b) The fountain in the real square has four spouts.The real one has three; the one in the photo, four.
- c) The chatbot said the photo was authentic.With 95% probability, according to its answer.
- ✗d) Several residents found wolf tracks in the square.Nobody saw the animal or found any tracks.
- e) The account that posted the photo had been created the day before.And it had no other posts.
- ✗f) The teacher who set the exercise taught Maths.Begoña Arrieta teaches Spanish language and literature.
5 The Gallery Visualisation
In the game you choose the illustration that answers this question: “Which is the photo that circulated on WhatsApp?”. Here, you draw it yourself, with every detail the text gives you.
What should appear: The wolf by the four-spout fountain and the crooked “BAKRY” sign: the details that gave the photo away.
Reward drawings that include the details from the text, not artistic skill.
Ending
To read aloud once the answers have been checked.
The photo was indeed fake: the four-spout fountain and the “BAKRY” sign don’t exist in Torrealba. What struck the students most was something else: the chatbot’s answer sounded very sure of itself, with its “95%”, and yet it was false. An AI tool can help, but it’s no substitute for looking, comparing and checking.
Nor were the 3,000 forwards proof: the fact that something is shared a lot only shows that a lot of people believed it, not that it’s true. And the sentence “wolves never come down to villages” would have been another mistake: the biologist explained that it can happen, although it’s rare.
Class 8B’s poster has been hanging at the school entrance since Monday. Someone has added a fifth question by hand: “Did I look myself, or was I told?”
Suggested marking
Each activity is worth 2 points (10 in total). In 1, one point for the hypothesis and one for the clue. In 2, give one point if only a couple of events are swapped. In 4, half a point for each correct cross and minus half a point for each true statement crossed out.