Session 12: Search Like a Pro

At a glance: pupils search with sharp keywords and the operators "quotes", minus, site: and OR, read a results page (ads vs results, Images, Maps and News), check a photo with a reverse image search, judge sources with the 4-Way Fact-Check Shield and cite them, then race to find 5 sourced facts about a Ghanaian topic. · Time: 90 minutes (adjust the timings if your period is shorter) · Workbook pages: 6

Learning outcomes

By the end of the session, pupils can:

Explain the difference between a browser and a search engine, and search with sharp keywords and the operators "quotes", minus (-), site: and OR.
Read a results page: tell adverts ("Sponsored") from results, use the Images, Maps and News tabs, and use a reverse image search to check whether a photo is old or fake.
Judge a source with the 4-Way Fact-Check Shield (Who? When? Why? Agree?), prefer reliable Ghanaian sources (.gov.gh, .edu.gh, established news), and cite a source with its title, website and date.

Before the session

Check that a search engine (Google, Bing or DuckDuckGo), images.google.com and Google Maps load on the PCs.
Make five topic cards: Lake Volta, Mole National Park, Kente weaving, Cape Coast Castle, cocoa farming in Ghana (one per team; repeat if you have more teams).
Prepare the "viral photo" for the photo detective bonus: save a well-known, older news photo (for example a famous flood or storm picture from another country, several years old) to the PCs' Desktop or a USB drive, and write a false caption for it such as "Flood in Tamale today!" on the board. Check beforehand that a reverse image search finds its real origin and date.
Load the Search Detective 3D lab on the projector PC and test it.
Draw the team points table on the board: facts, operators used, first to finish, photo detective.
Copy the offline pack to USB, plus a few printed or saved results pages, in case the internet fails.

Running order

Time	Activity	Workbook	What the mentor does
0–10 min	Typing warm-up	–	Pupils open the typing trainer and do today's drill while you set up the projector.
10–20 min	The market queen; how search engines work; browser vs search engine	Page 1	Ask "Who knows where everything in Makola is?" Walk through Figure 12.0. Ask "Is Google the window or the market queen?"
20–32 min	Keywords and operators	Page 2	Live demo on the projector: search `parks ghana`, then narrow it step by step as in Figure 12.1. Pupils write the three "Your turn" searches and test them.
32–42 min	Reading results, tabs, reverse image search	Page 3	Point to the "Sponsored" label on a real results page. Show the Maps tab and a reverse image search of the viral photo (do not reveal the answer yet).
42–50 min	Sources, the shield, citing, pop-up traps	Page 4	Read the two columns of the sources table aloud: "Good place or warning sign?" Model one citation.
50–57 min	Search Detective 3D lab	Page 5	Demonstrate the first mission, then pairs play.
57–79 min	The Search Race (team game)	Page 5	Hand out topic cards. Check facts and citations as teams finish, award points, then let them try the photo detective bonus.
79–86 min	Choose the best search and written review	Page 6	Show of hands for each task; pupils write their answers alone.
86–90 min	Self-assessment, sign-off, winners	Page 6	Sign off. Announce the winning team; reveal the truth about the viral photo. Everyone closes the browser.

Key ideas and how to explain them

The market queen: a search engine has already visited and catalogued billions of pages (crawl, index), so when you ask it sorts the matches (rank) and shows the best first. Best match is not the same as true.
Browser vs search engine: the browser (Chrome, Edge) is the window; the search engine (Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo) is the market queen you visit through it. Typing words into the address bar sends them to the browser's default search engine.
Keywords: the 2–6 words you would expect on the perfect page; drop "please", "tell me", "how can".
Operators: "quotes" for an exact phrase; -word to leave out (no space after the minus); site:gov.gh or site:edu.gh to stay on one kind of site (no space after the colon); OR in capitals for either word.
Results page: "Sponsored" or "Ad" means someone paid to be there. Read the address and snippet before clicking. AI summaries at the top can be wrong (Session 40).
Tabs: Images (pictures belong to their owners, Session 27), Maps (places and directions), News (recent stories with dates; Tools can limit to the past week).
Reverse image search: search with a picture (Google Lens in Chrome, or the camera icon at images.google.com or Bing Images). Look for the oldest copy and what it said. An old photo shared as "today" is misinformation (Session 34); edited and AI-made photos are deepfakes (Session 40).
Reliable sources: .gov.gh ministries and agencies, .edu.gh universities, established national news that names reporters, Wikipedia as a starting point (check its references). Rumour sites have no author or date, shouting headlines and strange addresses.
4-Way Shield and citing: Who? When? Why? Agree? Two independent reliable sources agreeing makes a fact trustworthy. A citation is title, website, date (and the day you visited).
Team points: 1 per fact that passes the shield with a full citation, 1 per different operator used, 2 for the first team to finish, 1 for a correct photo detective answer.

The 3D lab

Search Detective ("Narrow a mountain of results with smart keywords and operators, then pick the trustworthy sources from the fake ones"). A detective's desk in a library: a vague search buries the desk under a mountain of result cards, and the pile shrinks with every good keyword and operator. Three missions:

Solve both cases: shrink the pile to the right pages with "quotes", -minus, site: and OR. Case 1 starts from parks ghana and ends at "Mole National Park" elephants -hotel site:edu.gh (one university page left); Case 2 starts from a chatty question and ends at kenkey OR banku recipe. Pupils can type or press word buttons; trap buttons (- hotel, site: edu.gh, small or) show what goes wrong with a space or a small "or".
Sort all 7 sources right first time, naming the shield question that exposes each fake. Each fake is caught by one question: no author (WHO?), posted in 2015 (WHEN?), selling a "miracle" tea (WHY?), a claim nobody else agrees with (AGREE?).
Spot the Sponsored result, then choose the best real page to open. (Figure 12.2's search: the advert first, then the Wikipedia page.)

On the projector, do Case 1 together, saying each operator aloud as you add it and pointing to the pile and the result count. Pairs then do Case 2 and the source sorting, explaining which shield question gave each fake away. It links directly to Figure 12.1, the sources table on Page 4 and Figure 12.2, and warms pupils up for the Search Race.

Common mistakes and quick fixes

Pupils often…	Try this
Type a whole question with filler words	"Which words would be on the perfect page?" Cross out the rest.
Put a space after the minus or colon (`- hotel`, `site: gov.gh`)	Write the operator on the board with a red circle where the space must NOT be.
Type "or" in small letters	OR must be in capitals; small "or" is just another word.
Click the first result, even if it is an advert	Point to "Sponsored". Make them read the address and snippet aloud first.
Copy the whole sentence from the web page	Facts go into the record sheet in their own words; only the citation is copied exactly.
Write "Google" as the source	Google is the market queen, not the stall. The source is the website they opened.
Think one website agreeing with itself counts	The second source must be independent: a different organisation.

When things go wrong

No internet: run Search Detective from the offline pack. Do Page 2 on paper and judge printed results pages. Run the Search Race from printed pages: give each team 6–8 printed pages (some reliable, some rumour-style) and they pick, shield and cite facts from them.
Not enough PCs: teams of three: a searcher, a checker who runs the shield, and a scribe who writes citations; rotate roles after each fact.
A PC freezes or the power goes: the record sheet is on paper, so no work is lost. Use Ctrl + H (history) to find pages again when the PC restarts.

Answer key

Your turn (Page 2): look for working searches, for example:

Akosombo Dam site:gov.gh
"Volta Lake" fishing -hotel (or -hotels)
waakye OR jollof recipe

Citation (Page 4): must include the title, the website and a date (or "no date"), for example "Kakum National Park" · Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org) · last edited (date) · visited (date).

Search Race (Page 5): facts vary by topic. Check each one: it is true, written in the pupil's own words, has a citation with title, website and date, a second source agrees, at least two different operators were used, and at least one source is .gov.gh, .edu.gh or national news. Photo detective: the photo is older and/or from somewhere else, so the caption "today" is false.

1. Choose the Best Search (Page 6)

B: Akosombo Dam site:gov.gh.
A: "Tetteh Quarshie" (quotes for an exact name).
C: reverse image search it (never share it "just in case").
B: an advert someone paid for.

2. Written Review Questions

Chrome is a browser: the program (the window) you use to visit websites. Google is a search engine: a website you open inside the browser to find pages. You can use Google in Edge, or Bing in Chrome.
Pass it through the 4-Way Shield: who wrote it, when, why the site exists, and find at least one independent, reliable source (such as a .gov.gh, .edu.gh or national news site) that agrees. If no reliable source agrees, do not use it.

Support and stretch

Needs more support: give a keyword card with the four operators and one example each. In the race, let them find 3 facts instead of 5, with a confident partner checking citations.
Finished early: find the same fact on three independent sources; use the News tab with Tools to find a story from the past week about their topic; or combine three operators in one search and explain each part.

Evidence for sign-off

The pupil shows the Search Race record sheet with at least 4 facts that pass the shield, each with a title, website and date, and at least two different operators used. They can say the difference between a browser and a search engine, point to an advert on a results page, and show how to start a reverse image search. They get at least 3 of the 4 "Choose the best search" tasks right.

Safety and wellbeing

Watch screens during searching, especially the Images tab, and turn on SafeSearch on the Hub's search engine settings before the session (Google: Settings > SafeSearch; Bing: Settings > SafeSearch). If something upsetting appears, pupils close the tab and tell you; thank them, never blame them. Remind them of the pop-up trap: never type personal details into a prize or virus pop-up. The viral photo you prepare must not be distressing (no injured people). Pupils do not sign in to anything today and close the browser at the end.