Abstract
This is a case study of open assignment in secondary education, targeted at misinformation related to chemistry. In the assignment, the students were to find the misinformation by themselves using the web with little direction.
Therefore, the case study was targeting both the difficulty of the very open approach to assignments and the recognition and critical assessment of misinformation in the students. The case study discovered that the ability of surveyed students to deal with very open assignment was not on the desirable level and nearly half of them failed.
Once the students overcame this initial difficulty, the argument quality of the students was generally on point, showing understanding of the chosen topic. However, the most common scientifically accurate arguments were based on popularization science articles or outlets of fact-checking organizations that each themselves declared their sources, not on the scientific papers.