“They can see themselves shaping the world they live in”

As you travel from the suburbs to the city, the number of trees often decreases as skyscrapers appear. A group of students from the New England Innovation Academy wondered why this happens.

"Our friend Victoria noticed that in Marlborough, where we live, there are many trees in our backyards. But if you drive just 30 minutes to Boston, there are almost no trees," said high school junior Ileana Fournier. "We were surprised by this contrast."

This observation inspired Fournier and her classmates, Victoria Leeth and Jessie Magenyi, to create a prototype mobile app that shows deforestation trends in Massachusetts. They developed it for the Day of AI, a free, hands-on curriculum created by the MIT Responsible AI for Social Empowerment and Education (RAISE) initiative, based at the MIT Media Lab in collaboration with the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing and MIT Open Learning. They were part of a group of 20 students from the New England Innovation Academy who showcased their projects during the 2024 Day of AI global celebration hosted with the Museum of Science.

The Day of AI curriculum introduces K-12 students to artificial intelligence. Now in its third year, Day of AI helps students improve their communities and tackle larger global challenges using AI. The TreeSavers app by Fournier, Leeth, and Magenyi is part of the Telling Climate Stories with Data module, one of four new lessons focused on climate change.

“We want you to express yourselves creatively and use AI to solve problems with critical-thinking skills,” said Cynthia Breazeal, director of MIT RAISE, dean for digital learning at MIT Open Learning, and professor of media arts and sciences, during this year’s Day of AI global celebration at the Museum of Science. “We want you to have an ethical and responsible approach to this powerful, cool, and exciting technology.”

From understanding to action

Day of AI encourages students to explore how AI intersects with various fields, such as history, civics, computer science, math, and climate change. With the curriculum available year-round, more than 10,000 educators in 114 countries have brought Day of AI activities to their classrooms and homes.

The curriculum empowers students to assess local issues and create meaningful solutions. “We’re considering how to develop tools that give kids direct access to data and connect with their personal experiences,” said Robert Parks, a curriculum developer at MIT RAISE, during the Day of AI global celebration.

Before this year, first-year student Jeremie Kwapong said he knew very little about AI. “I was very intrigued,” he said. “I started experimenting with ChatGPT to see how it responds. How close can I get this to human emotion? How does AI’s knowledge compare to a human’s knowledge?”

In addition to sparking students' interest in AI literacy, teachers worldwide have told MIT RAISE they want to use data science lessons to engage students in discussions about climate change. Therefore, Day of AI’s new hands-on projects use weather and climate change to show students why it’s important to develop a critical understanding of dataset design and collection when observing the world around them.

“There is a delay between cause and effect in our daily lives,” said Parks. “Our goal is to make that clearer and give kids access to data so they can see the bigger picture.”

Tools like MIT App Inventor, which lets anyone create a mobile app, help students understand what they can learn from data. Fournier, Leeth, and Magenyi used App Inventor to create TreeSavers, which tracks regional deforestation rates in Massachusetts, identifies trends using statistical models, and predicts environmental impacts. The students applied this "long view" of climate change by developing TreeSavers’ interactive maps. Users can switch between Massachusetts’s current tree cover, historical data, and future high-risk areas.

Although AI provides quick answers, it doesn’t always offer fair solutions, said David Sittenfeld, director of the Center for the Environment at the Museum of Science. The Day of AI curriculum encourages students to think about where data comes from, ensure it is unbiased, and consider how their findings might be used responsibly.

“There’s an ethical concern about tracking people’s data,” said Ethan Jorda, a student at the New England Innovation Academy. His group used open-source data to create an app that helps users track and reduce their carbon footprint.

Christine Cunningham, senior vice president of STEM Learning at the Museum of Science, believes students are ready to use AI responsibly to improve the world. “They can see themselves shaping the world they live in,” said Cunningham. “As they move from understanding to action, kids will never look at a bridge or a piece of plastic on the ground in the same way again.”