How Do We Know?

K–2 · Section I

Overview & standards

Little kids mix up three different things all the time: what they saw, what someone told them, and what they're guessing. This track turns that into a game they can win, becoming "fact detectives" who can say how they know and how sure they are. It plants the seed of every later skill in this museum, with nothing heavier than classroom objects, a photo, and a picture book.

Essential question

How do we know if something is really true?

Children will understand that

• There's a difference between "I saw it," "someone told me," and "I'm guessing."
• Good detectives look carefully and check before they decide.
• It's okay, and smart, to say "I'm not sure."

Standards alignment

References the Common Core and Massachusetts frameworks for K-2. Confirm exact alignment against your district's current adoption.

K–2 · Section II

Teacher background

Before children can evaluate a source, they need a feel for the difference between knowing, being told, and guessing. Cognitively, five-to-eight-year-olds are just beginning to track where their information came from (researchers call this "source monitoring"). This track makes that visible with three buckets and a thumbs signal:

• I saw it: my own eyes (first-hand).
• Someone told me: I heard it from a person, a book, a screen.
• I'm guessing: I don't really know yet.

The thumbs signal (thumb up = sure, sideways = kind of, down = not sure) is a child-sized version of the museum's confidence tags. Keep everything concrete and safe: this is about how we know, practiced on objects, a photograph, and a nonfiction picture book, not about any hard history. Model your own thinking out loud ("I think there are four windows… let's count, now I know").

K–2 · Section III

The five lessons

K–2 · Section IV

Materials

• Classroom objects and the room itself (for counting/checking).
• One clear, simple photograph (street, kitchen, or playground).
• A nonfiction picture book the class can look something up in.
• Fact Detective picture-sort cards and the Thumbs card (on the printable handouts page).

All content is everyday and safe; no historical trauma material is used in the K-2 track.

K–2 · Section V

Assessment

Observe each child during Lessons 2 and 5. Can the child:

K–2 · Section VI

Support & printables

Support every learner

• Movement & visuals: the thumbs signal and bucket pictures give non-readers a way in.
• Partner talk: "how do you know?" is practiced out loud before any writing.
• Home link: "Ask someone at home one thing and find out if it's sure, kind of, or a guess."

Printables for this track

3–5 · Section I

Overview & standards

Now the buckets get the names historians use. Students learn that a primary source is "from the time" and a secondary source is "told later," that we trust a fact more when sources agree, and that we can put a confidence label on what we find. We practice on a neutral, well-documented local question so the focus stays on the skill.

Essential question

How do historians decide what really happened?

Enduring understandings

• Sources are either from the time (primary) or told later (secondary), and that matters.
• When two sources agree on their own, we can be more confident.
• We can label how sure we are, and saying "not sure" is honest, not wrong.

Standards alignment

References the Common Core and Massachusetts frameworks for grades 3-5. Confirm against your district's adoption.

3–5 · Section II

Teacher background

This track introduces three tools and a ladder:

• Primary vs secondary: a photograph taken in 1850 is "from the time"; today's textbook page about 1850 is "told later." Both are useful; they do different jobs.
• Corroboration: when two sources that didn't copy each other say the same thing, the fact is stronger.
• The Confidence Ladder, a kid-friendly version of the museum's four tags:

• Sure: strong evidence from the time. Verified
• Pretty sure: sources agree. Corroborated
• Heard it: a story or memory, not yet checked. Oral
• Don't know yet: we can't tell. Unknown

Use a gentle but real anchor question drawn from this museum, so students practice method on local history that matters: "How do we know the bar at 20 Kenyon Street in New Bedford has really been a safe gathering place for over forty years?" It is documented (a 2022 newspaper feature, a current event listing, an obituary) and age-appropriate, a place where people gather that has lasted a long time, and it lets young students source it directly from the museum's own 20 Kenyon Street source set, where the founding year is Verified but the exact opening day is honestly marked Unknown.

3–5 · Section III

The five lessons

3–5 · Section IV

Sources & materials

Use grade-appropriate, well-documented, neutral material so the skill stays in focus.

• The ready-made 20 Kenyon Street source set: real, confidence-tagged documents about one local place, plus any period photo and a modern retelling of the same subject.
• Two or three short statements about a documented local fact (for the corroboration lesson).
• The Confidence Ladder (3-5) and Source Sort printables.
• Optional museum tie-in: the Places map and Coverage dashboard as examples of "showing how sure we are."

3–5 · Section V

Assessment & rubric

Confidence audit: give students five statements with their sources; they place each on the ladder and explain.

3–5 · Section VI

Support & printables

Support every learner

• Graphic organizers and sentence frames ("We are ___ because ___") scaffold the writing.
• Choice of a neutral topic keeps engagement high and content safe.
• Visual ladder anchors the abstract idea of confidence.

Printables for this track

6–8 · Section I

Overview & standards

Middle schoolers can handle a genuinely contested question. This track builds the full toolkit, primary vs secondary, reliability and bias, corroboration and independence, and the museum's four confidence tags, and applies it to a claim that real historians disagree about.

Essential question

How do we judge whether a historical claim is trustworthy, and how should we show our uncertainty?

Enduring understandings

• Every source was made by someone, at some time, for some reason, and that shapes it.
• Two outlets repeating one rumor are not two independent sources.
• Honest history labels what is verified, corroborated, oral, or unknown rather than flattening it into "fact."

Standards alignment

References the Common Core literacy standards (history/social studies), the C3 Framework, and the MA frameworks for grades 6-8. Confirm against your district's adoption.

6–8 · Section II

Teacher background

This track makes the museum's working method explicit. Students learn to ask of any source: who made it, when, and why (reliability and bias); whether other sources corroborate it; and crucially whether those sources are independent (a fact repeated by ten websites that all copied one post is still one source). They then apply the museum's four tags, Verified, Corroborated, Oral, Unknown, to label their conclusions.

The worked case is the contested claim that athlete Babe Didrikson Zaharias is sometimes called "the first lesbian Olympic gold medalist." Her athletic record is rock-solid; the identity label is an interpretation applied to a person who did not describe herself that way publicly. It is a perfect, age-appropriate lesson in the difference between a documented fact and a later interpretation, and in the ethics of labeling someone's identity, which connects to the museum's never-infer and self-identification rules. Preview the Our Method page. For a deeper version, the upper-grades Interrogating Claims set works five real cases like this one, a documented "first," an unverifiable one, an attributed claim, a modern label, and a claim the museum withholds.

6–8 · Section III

The six lessons

6–8 · Section IV

Source set: the contested claim

A short, teachable set on "first lesbian Olympic gold medalist." Use it to separate documented record from interpretation.

Culminating prompt: "What can we say with confidence about this person, and how should we label what we are less sure of? Use at least three sources."

6–8 · Section V

Assessment & rubric

6–8 · Section VI

Support & printables

Support every learner

• Source-evaluation organizer with who/when/why prompts and sentence frames.
• Tiered source set: assign two sources to emerging readers, all five to others.
• Expression options: the write-up can be a paragraph, an annotated chart, or a recorded explanation.

Printables for this track

9–12 · Section I

Overview & standards

At the high-school level the question becomes both methodological and ethical: how do historians establish what is true, and how should we represent uncertainty and identity responsibly? Students master the museum's confidence system and the ethics of writing about people who lived, and were sometimes forced to hide, in the past.

Essential question

How do historians establish what is true, and how should we represent uncertainty, and people's identities, with integrity?

Enduring understandings

• Historical knowledge is argued from evidence, not simply found; the strength of a claim depends on the strength and independence of its sources.
• Representing uncertainty honestly (Verified / Corroborated / Oral / Unknown) is a discipline, not a weakness.
• Labeling a historical person's identity raises real ethical questions: documented record versus interpretation, and the primacy of self-identification.

Standards alignment

References the Common Core literacy standards, the C3 Framework, and the MA frameworks for grades 9-12. Confirm against your district's adoption.

9–12 · Section II

Teacher background

This is the museum's foundational discipline taught at full depth. Students already sort primary and secondary sources; here they reason about independence (does corroboration come from genuinely separate sources?), provenance (where did this come from, and through whose hands?), and the museum's four-tag confidence system. They then take on the hardest part: the ethics of writing LGBTQ+ history, where stigma, criminalization, and the danger of being out mean the record is full of silences, and where applying a modern identity label to a historical person can be either an act of recovery or an act of overreach.

The worked case, Babe Didrikson Zaharias and the "first lesbian gold medalist" claim, lets students practice the museum's rule: state the documented record; attribute interpretations to those who make them; honor self-identification; and never silently promote an inference to a fact. This is the never-infer principle that governs the whole museum. Read Our Method. The companion Interrogating Claims set turns this into a five-case taxonomy of claims for students to master.

9–12 · Section III

The six lessons

9–12 · Section IV

Source set: the contested claim

The five-document set on "first lesbian Olympic gold medalist," used to practice confidence tagging and the ethics of identity claims.

Culminating prompt (DBQ): "Using at least four sources, construct an evidence-based account of what can be claimed with confidence about this person, explicitly tagging the confidence of each claim and justifying your ethical choices about identity."

9–12 · Section V

Assessment & rubric

9–12 · Section VI

Support & printables

Support every learner

• Tiered entry: a guided source-evaluation organizer for some; open DBQ for others.
• Discussion protocols (e.g., structured academic controversy) to handle the ethics conversation with care.
• Expression options: formal essay, annotated source portfolio, or a recorded oral defense.

Printables for this track