Upper School Banned Book Club Raises Awareness on MisinfoDay

The Banned Book Club (BBC) aims to shed light on the controversial topic of book banning, giving students a space to discuss what drives people to challenge books. Students in the BBC meet once a week on Thursdays during lunch to conduct informative activities, discuss recent news on banned books, and decorate the Upper School bulletin board with information about recently prohibited literature. Students in the BBC also help maintain the Lower School’s Little Free Library, located just outside the black gate, and ensure books are donated every semester. The BBC maintains strong community partnerships, such as participating in the Seattle Public Library book drive and donating over 600 books for community enjoyment. 

“At the time the Banned Book Club was formed, lots of news was circulating about how several books had been removed from school libraries, and I thought: ‘This is a pressing issue, we should form a literacy group around this’,” Samuel C. ’27 shared. “Middle and Upper School Librarian Liz Ebersole agreed to be our advisor and gave us the tools to help create the club. This year, we started off strong—we’ve conducted a full-on Banned Books event, created several posters, and we do trivia every month to keep us informed.”

On Tuesday, March 17, Kate O. ’27 and Samuel, who are both leaders of the BBC, raised awareness of MisinfoDay, which focuses on helping high school students, teachers, and librarians navigate the complex digital information environment and empower them to make informed decisions about what data on the internet is credible and which is unreliable. 

That morning, Kate, Samuel, and members of the BBC facilitated an escape-room-style experience, involving a variety of puzzles, all related to deciphering between different types of information. Upper School students were divided into groups to tackle several challenges together, including analyzing A.I.-generated and real photos and using provided hints to learn how to determine real photos from AI-generated ones. They also engaged in a “clickbait scavenger hunt” in which they had to match headlines to descriptions to identify credible source titles from sensationalized ones. These activities helped strengthen Upper School students’ knowledge of source credibility, providing them with the skills to identify dependable sources.

“We have all heard of misinformation, but we tend to forget how it’s perpetuated in all the media we consume,” said Kate. “It’s easier said than done to take a step back and think about whether the news we consume is accurate information. I thought MisinfoDay was a great opportunity for us to bring this issue to light in a way that’s also engaging and encourages teamwork and collaboration.”

An annual event organized and hosted by the University of Washington (UW), MisinfoDay allowed various schools to sign up and attend the seminar as part of an engaging field trip. When Liz learned that UW would not be opening the event to schools this year, she saw an opportunity to think differently. Rather than step back, she encouraged Bush students to blaze a new trail by hosting their own student-led MisinfoDay on campus. After speaking with Samuel and Kate about the possibility of leading an Upper School event, they stepped forward with curiosity and courage, embracing the challenge and bringing the idea to life.

“UW wanted this event to be completely student-led,” said Liz. “Bush was the first school to pilot a student-led MisInfoDay, which was really powerful. It was such a success. I felt like Samuel and Kate were hungry for a task like this, and this was an appropriate challenge for them and the club.” 

Now twenty-five members strong and still growing, the BBC has its sights set on planning a cross-divisional MisinfoDay with the Middle School, hoping that the knowledge Upper School students have absorbed will be well received by younger students. 

“Since we’ve gone through the planning process, we have more experience in how to run MisinfoDay,” Samuel said. “We are excited to help other schools and divisions, and I think it would be really fun to do this again.”