Grade Levels: 3-5, 6-8, 9-12

*Click to open and customize your own copy of the Online Safety Lesson Plan

This lesson accompanies the BrainPOP topic Online Safety, and supports the standard of practicing safe and responsible use of information and technology. Students demonstrate understanding through a variety of projects.

Step 1: ACTIVATE PRIOR KNOWLEDGE

Ask students:

  • How do you know what is appropriate to post on the internet?

Step 2: BUILD KNOWLEDGE

  • Read the description on the Online Safety topic page.
  • Play the Movie, pausing to check for understanding.
  • Assign Related Reading. Have students read one of the following articles:“In Practice,” Laws and Custom,” and “Real Life”. Pair them with someone who read a different article to share what they learned with each other.

Step 3: APPLY and ASSESS 

Assign the Online Safety Challenge and Quiz, prompting students to apply essential literacy skills while demonstrating what they learned about this topic.

Step 4: DEEPEN and EXTEND

Students express what they learned about online safety while practicing essential literacy skills with one or more of the following activities. Differentiate by assigning ones that meet individual student needs.

  • Make-a-MovieProduce a tutorial that answers this question: What are some strategies for protecting personal privacy on the Internet? 
  • Make-a-Map: Make a concept map identifying safety rules for using the Internet and explain why each rule is important. 
  • Creative Coding: Code a sorting game challenging players to identify what is and isn’t appropriate to post online. 
  • Primary Source Activity: Read the court document about a computer hacking case and cite details to answer the accompanying questions.  

More to Explore

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Teacher Support Resources:

Lesson Plan Common Core State Standards Alignments