The WATER Check.
A free media literacy framework by Eric Jourgensen, Ed.D. Use it to check sources, headlines, statistics, and AI answers before sharing.
A media literacy lesson using dihydrogen monoxide.
A national feature follows the dihydrogen monoxide lesson from a student-newsroom exercise into a broader way to teach fact-checking, context, and misinformation literacy.
How a journalism instructor is teaching his students about fact-checking and misinformation through dihydrogen monoxide
Open the articleSee WATER happen before you use it.
Watch one DHMO claim move from reaction to evidence in about 30 seconds. Pause it, replay it, or jump to any step. No sound required.
Loading the example opens the real app with the DHMO check filled in. If you already have a WATER Check saved in this browser, you will be asked before it is replaced.
Website first. App when you are ready.
The website teaches the framework and demonstrates it. The app stays focused on doing the work, one claim and one step at a time.
Start with one claim.
A frightening warning about dihydrogen monoxide arrives before you know what the substance is.
Five moves before you react.
WATER is not a credibility score and it does not tell you what to believe. It creates a repeatable pause between seeing a claim and deciding what that claim has earned.
Pause before reacting. Notice the emotion or certainty arriving first.
What exactly is being claimed? What evidence would actually prove it?
Follow the information toward the original source. Who made it, where did it appear, and why?
Check evidence, context, scale, omissions, source quality, framing, and uncertainty.
Choose a response proportionate to the evidence: share, question, correct, investigate, wait, or walk away.
WATER gives an individual reader a miniature version of newsroom friction.
Good verification systems interrupt the satisfying moment when someone gets to say, “I knew it.” The framework is useful only when it becomes behavior.
Use it on things you love.
If a verification framework works only on suspicious websites and political posts, it is too narrow. Use it on movie trailers, comic panels, sports calls, celebrity claims, product endorsements, viral clips, and AI answers.
The low-stakes examples are rehearsal. They reveal how identity, familiarity, authority, emotion, repetition, and presentation can turn fragments into stories before the consequences get serious.
Wait. Ask. Trace. Examine. Respond.
Then do it again the next time certainty arrives before evidence.
WATER grows out of EITYWT.
The book examines how true information can be framed into a misleading story. WATER turns that problem into a practical routine readers can use in the wild.
Explore the bookWhy verification became the throughline.
Journalism, teaching, technology, photography, broadcasting, and popular culture all contributed pieces of the same lesson.
Follow the storyWhere did WATER make you work too hard?
The most useful feedback is specific: what you understood immediately, where you hesitated, what felt unnecessary, and what would make the tool easier for a teacher or student to use independently.
Test the tool. Then test my assumptions.
The survey recognizes WATER users and opens a dedicated usability section automatically.
Give WATER feedbackUse WATER in a media literacy lesson.
Start with the DHMO worked example above. Ask students to identify the claim, trace its source, and explain what context changes its meaning. Then have them apply the same questions to a headline or AI answer they choose.
Want the whole class period? The 45-minute dihydrogen monoxide lesson walks through the claims, the vote, the reveal, the debrief, and a lateral reading step.
The goal is an evidence trail students can explain. A confident verdict without sources leaves the work unfinished.
Choose your next exercise.
Find a first-lesson plan, existing resources, and the curriculum preview.
Open the guided source-verification tool to record a check, or use the free fictional newsroom exercise and worksheet.
Want it ready to teach? The WATER Check Classroom Kit is five periods of lesson plans, slides, and handouts, single teacher through site license. The five-moves poster puts it on the wall.
Get the Classroom KitMedia literacy workshops for educators