Can eating oranges in the shower reduce anxiety? Does putting garlic in your nose clear congestion? To find out, just ask Professor Jim Kain’s freshman Honors Research and Writing students, who created two fact-checking websites this semester (Campus Fact and Clarity Check) and presented their work in the library classroom on December 5.

The students didn’t tackle just quirky social media rumors. They addressed serious topics, too, such as the connection between the MMR vaccine and autism and the environmental impact of AI.

According to Kain, “Through collaborative teamwork, they created a web platform to share their research findings as they investigated and evaluated some questionable claims they found in the news and social media. With AI assistance, they generated templates and rubrics for evaluating and recording their findings, and they applied website design tools to create a user-friendly webpage to engage their readers.”

The mission of the students, stated clearly on the Campus Fact landing page, is to promote accuracy, transparency, and accountability in the information people consume: “We are dedicated to separating verified facts from misinformation through careful research and objective evaluation. Our goal is to inform the public with credible data so readers can make well-reasoned decisions based on truth, not speculation.”

The two classes divided the work among claim finders, researchers, evaluators, and writers. They worked in teams and collaborated with Neumann’s librarians in weekly meetings.

Kain’s method was to have the honors students work together to create something. “I wanted them to go through each step of the process themselves, so they could see what goes into it and how much work is involved.” 

Students liked the learning-by-doing approach.

“We used AI to help find claims with original sources,” recalls Emily Miller, an early childhood education major. “We found that AI provided more current information than Google did. We then performed our own research on the topics and sources to make sure they were reliable.”

Wybee Baker, a criminal justice major, agrees. “By finding the original sources,” she says, “we were able to better understand each claim and evaluate our references to find the correct answer or story (as some of our fact checks did not have a definitive answer).”

So, can oranges and garlic reduce anxiety and clear congestion? See for yourself at Campus Fact.