On 24 January 2026, students of Mały Uniwersytet Rzeszowski (MUR), an educational programme for primary school pupils, visited the Faculty of Philology at the University of Rzeszów to take part in a series of educational workshops prepared by its academic staff.

The oldest group (grades 6–8) attended classes at the Institute of Applied Linguistics titled “In the Jungle of Information and Languages". During the first part, led by Dr. hab., Prof. UR Marta Smykała and Dr. Dorota Miller, participants explored the topic of disinformation. They discussed fake news, deepfakes, information and filter bubbles, bots, trolling, the megaphone effect, and cognitive warfare, and learned how to distinguish facts from opinions and identify false or misleading information. A real-life example demonstrated how quickly disinformation can spread and what consequences it may have. The session also highlighted the role of emotions in the reception of online content, the illusion of explanatory depth, and introduced fact-checking tools and platforms used to verify information.

The second part, titled “Secrets of a Simultaneous Interpreter’s Work, or Life in the Booth", was led by Dr. Iwona Szwed. During this session, students learned about the nature of interpreting, including the need to listen and speak simultaneously while dividing attention between two languages. Some participants tried their hand at interpreting, while others tested the headsets, receivers, and booth control panels used in professional interpreting, with the support of a student of Applied Linguistics, Jakub Ramus.

At the same time, the youngest participants (grades 1–3) were also guests of the Faculty of Philology and took part in classes at the Institute of English Philology titled “The Latin Alphabet and Cyrillic – Similarities and Differences". With the support of Dr. Natalia Zhukovych-Dorodnykh from the Centre for Foreign Language Teaching and Certification, the youngest MUR students explored the Cyrillic alphabet, learned about its basic features, and discovered interesting linguistic facts related to different writing systems.

The classes were supported by students from various fields of study: Viktoriia Dorodnykh (Law), Anastasiia Brusentsova (Law), Natalia Kostiuk (Tourism and Recreation), and Ewelina Czop (English Philology), and the overall coordination of the activities was provided by Dr. Agnieszka Czech-Rogoyska.