I thought that was odd as well. I call boys at age around 7-8 as being "in the dinosaur phase", because that's when it seems a lot of boys get really excited about dinosaurs and read up a lot on them, spouting info. And if not dinosaurs, then football cards or similar.

I wouldn't expect an 8-year-old to 'evaluate the trustworthiness of a source', but I think that that's not what is actually expected of the students, and that it's just the parent trying to shoehorn in everything an adult is supposed to do when researching.