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The rapid expansion of Artificial Intelligence (AI) necessitates a need for educating students to become knowledgeable of AI and aware of its interrelated technical, social, and human implications. The latter (ethics) is particularly important to K-12 students because they may have been interacting with AI through everyday technology without realizing it. They may be targeted by AI generated fake content on social media and may have been victims of algorithm bias in AI applications of facial recognition and predictive policing. To empower students to recognize ethics related issues of AI, this paper reports the design and implementation of a suite of ethics activities embedded in the Developing AI Literacy (DAILy) curriculum. These activities engage students in investigating bias of existing technologies, experimenting with ways to mitigate potential bias, and redesigning the YouTube recommendation system in order to understand different aspects of AI-related ethics issues. Our observations of implementing these lessons among adolescents and exit interviews show that students were highly engaged and became aware of potential harms and consequences of AI tools in everyday life after these ethics lessons.
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AI through Computational Cameras for K6-K8 Teachers and Students: Preliminary Results from Virtual Workshops
In the next 50 years, the rise of computing and artificial intelligence (AI) will transform our society and it is clear that students will be forced to engage with AI in their careers. Currently, the United States does not have the infrastructure or capacity in place to support the teaching of AI in the K-12 curriculum. To deal with the above challenges, we introduce the use of visual media as a key bridge technology to engage students in grades 6-8 with AI topics, through a recently NSF funded ITEST program, labeled ImageSTEAM. Specifically, we focus on the idea of a computational camera, which rethinks the sensing interface between the physical world and intelligent machines, and enables students to ponder how sensors and perception fundamentally will augment science and technology in the future. Our 1st set of workshops (summer 2021) with teachers and students were conducted virtually due to recent pandemic, and the results and experiences will be shared and discussed in the conference.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1949384
- PAR ID:
- 10343203
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- American Society of Engineering Education (Southeast Regional Conference)
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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