ITHACA -- Teaching students to be scrutinizing consumers of mass media -- television, books, movies and other forms -- is the goal of the Ithaca College group Project Look Sharp.

One of its current projects, a series of high school curriculum kits, will help teachers connect history and social studies lessons with critical thinking on mass media, according to Chris Sperry, Look Sharp's curriculum and staff development director.

A national curriculum kit that has been in the works for about two years is complete and will be available in the next two weeks, Sperry said.

Called "Media Construction of War: A Critical Reading of History," it provides study guides, handouts, images and a 12-minute video on mass media coverage of wars including Vietnam, the Gulf War and the war in Afghanistan.

A large part of the curriculum is comparing Newsweek Magazine cover images of world leaders, from Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh to Saddam Hussein, Sperry explained.

"What's important to add in the lesson plans is what the government learned during the wars, and to analyze all points of view," Sperry said.

Project Look Sharp, founded six years ago, encourages the integration of media literacy into classrooms. It is led by Cyndy Scheibe, who is also associate professor of psychology at Ithaca College.

The kits are only one strategy that Look Sharp staff are working on to drive mostly high school, but also middle school and college curricula, to change with a media-literate world.

That means the ability to access, analyze and critically evaluate media in all forms -- whether television, Internet, radio, and even advertisements and maps.

Another aspect of Project Look Sharp's work is to make curricula in general more accessible to all students. With the war curriculum kit, Sperry explained that a student weak in reading might benefit from the opportunity to explore and analyze magazine covers, which draws on more visual strengths.

Two kits in progress, one on presidential elections and the other on media and the Middle East, are being funded via an anonymous, $104,500 grant. Ithaca College and the Parks Foundation provided funding for the Media Construction of War kit.

Schools districts or individual teachers can buy the kits through the Center for Media Literacy. All the kit materials are also on a CD-ROM, making reproduction within schools easier.

"Presidential Elections, Mass Media and Democracy," is scheduled to be completed by spring 2004, and "News Media and the Middle East" by the following spring.