Conspiracy or Not? A Research Project

Do your students enjoy conspiracy theories?

Students will get to perform research to see if the allegation for each conspiracy is true. They will understand what the conspiracy is, who is involved, gather evidence, evaluate contradicting evidence, summarize their findings, and decide if the conspiracy is true or false.

With the research performed in this project students will be better informed, prepared for future research projects, and be able to read more complex documents to make an informed opinion.

Students will perform research to find out if the following conspiracies are true:

• Watergate Scandal
• The Gulf of Tonkin Incident
• Cointelpro
• Big Tobbacco hid evidence
• The FBI poisoned alcohol
• NSA mass surveillance
• Operation Paperclip
• Manhattan Project
• Operation Mockingbird
• The moon landing was faked
• Area 51 aliens
• The world is flat
• PLUS a blank set for you to research your own conspiracy theory!

I've included a rubric if you wish to have students complete this as an independent project without the use of the worksheet. The worksheet makes it easy to gather information, write down evidence that supports/denies each claim and a section for a short summary in which they'll tell whether the evidence has proven or disproven the theory.

This project can be made as an easy research project or as a complex, build your tri-fold bulletin board project.

Get your tin foil hats on!

Enjoy!