(CNN) "Jennifer Aniston did WHAT to her hair?" screams the headline.

Below the headline is a photo of the actress with a military buzz cut, along with a quote about how she'd shorn her iconic blonde locks for a role.

The online article , printed on handouts that Alexis Gerard has distributed to her class at Clemente Middle School in Germantown, Maryland, is startling. It's irresistible.

It's fake.

Students at Clemente Middle School in Germantown, Maryland, read a made-up story about actress Jennifer Aniston.

Gerard is using the story to remind the 11- and 12-year-olds they shouldn't believe everything they read online.

"There's so much fake news out there, they really don't know what's true anymore," Gerard says.

That's why educators like her around the world have launched programs to help students navigate this bewildering media landscape.

In the Czech Republic, high schools teach teens to identify propaganda from Russia

In Sweden, students as young as 10 are schooled on how to consume news

And in Pennsylvania, a state lawmaker wants mandatory media literacy classes in all public schools.

"The sophistication in how this false information is disguised and spread can make it very difficult for someone, particularly young people, to determine fact from fiction," says Rep. Tim Briggs.

Fake news and kids

Kids are web savvy. But that doesn't necessarily mean they're media savvy.

A survey by Common Sense Media, released earlier this month, really brought home that point

In it, 44% of tweens and teens said they can tell the difference between fake news stories and real ones. But more than 30% admitted they shared a news story online -- only to find out later that it was wrong or inaccurate.

"There was sort of a filter on what was available to kids," says Bob Thomas, a middle school education technology specialist in Massachusetts. He's referring to the traditional gatekeepers of old media.

"And now those filters are all off. Anyone can publish (anything) on the web. In a way, it's a sad thing."

Fighting against fiction

So, how do you prepare against that?

For educators, it means equipping themselves with some new weapons.

A few basic questions to consider Who made this? Who's making money off it? Who might benefit or be harmed by this message? What is left out of this message that might be important? Is this credible (and what makes you think that)? -- Project Look Sharp

One of them is a course created by the nonprofit, the News Literacy Project that teachers from California to Virginia are adding to their classrooms. It includes a 10-question checklist for identifying fake news.

Some of the red flags are easy to spot.

Is the story missing a byline? Is the headline in ALL CAPS? Is there excessive punctuation? Are they promising you something "the media" doesn't want you to know?

Some take a little more thought.

Who published it? Is the tone a little sensational? Is the content genuinely trying to inform you, or just trying to get you to see ads?

The Media and Society class in session at Midtown International School.

Cynicism helps

Teachers say it's working. Part of the reason: Kids, particularly middle schoolers, are inherently cynical.

Question what you hear. Question authority. Question perspective. Question the sources. Patricia Hunt

Patricia Hunt, who teaches government at a high school in Arlington, Virginia, say her students were already learning how to evaluate sources academically. So doing the same for news sources was a natural next step.

"Question what you hear. Question authority," she tells them. "Question the perspective. Question the sources."

Learning the difference

Teacher Munib Rezaie

At Atlanta's Midtown International School , six boys and a girl sit around one big table. Their assignment: Find a story that interests them, find what's false within it, debunk it and then create a public service announcement to fight back against its lies.

The students work independently, but they can't help but pass their computers around, sharing the articles they find too ridiculous not to laugh at together.

Andrew Boyacigiller, 12.

"I normally know the difference between propaganda and news," says Andrew Boyacigiller, a seventh grader. But he says the class has helped him discern between credible news outlets and ones that are just trying to match ads with eyeballs.

"I think (this class) is changing what news I would actually pick."

A few things to watch for Look for unusual URLs, including those that end with "lo" or ".com.co" Look for words in all caps, bold unsourced claims, and sensationalist images Check a site's "About Us" section If it's too good (or bad) to be true, double check elsewhere Check multiple sources before trusting -- Common Sense Media

Their media literacy teacher is a bearded young man named Munib Rezaie. The students have been studying fake news all week — what it looks like, why it's written and how it spreads. They use sites like Snopes and FactCheck.org to cross-check the stories they find.

And slowly but surely, they're forming a habit.

Ray Gipson is another seventh-grader in the class.

"I didn't really have a way of knowing what was what," he says. But now he double checks articles that look questionable. "Even being slightly (more) aware, it's a really big difference."

After all, he says, there's so much information in the world.