As you travel from the suburbs to the city, treetops often become smaller as skyscrapers rise. Group New England Innovation Academy students wondered why this was happening.
“Our friend Victoria noticed that where we live in Marlborough, we have a ton of trees in our yards. But if you drive just 30 minutes to Boston, there are almost no trees,” said Ileana Fournier, a sophomore. “We were struck by the duality.”
This inspired Fournier and her classmates, Victoria Leeth and Jessie Magenyi, to create a prototype for a mobile app that illustrates deforestation trends in Massachusetts. AI Dayfree, hands-on curriculum developed by MIT’s Responsible AI for Social Empowerment and Education (RAISE) initiative, based at the MIT Media Lab in partnership with MIT Schwarzman College of Computing and MIT Open Learning. They were among 20 students from the Fresh England Innovation Academy who shared their projects at AI Day 2024 global celebration organized together with the Science Museum.
This AI Curriculum Day introduces students in grades K-12 to artificial intelligence. In its third year, Day of AI empowers students to improve their communities and collaborate on solving larger global challenges using AI. Fournier, Leeth, and Magenyi’s TreeSavers app is part of Telling Climate Stories with Data, one of four new lessons focused on climate change.
“We want you to be able to express yourself creatively, using AI to solve problems with critical thinking skills,” said Cynthia Breazeal, director of MIT RAISE, dean of digital learning at MIT Open Learning, and professor of media arts and sciences, at this year’s global AI Day celebration at the Museum of Science. “We want you to have an ethical and responsible way of thinking about this really powerful, cool, and exciting technology.”
Moving from understanding to action
Day of AI invites students to explore the intersection of AI and diverse disciplines, such as history, social studies, computer science, mathematics, and climate change. Through a year-long curriculum, more than 10,000 educators from 114 countries have brought Day of AI activities into their classrooms and homes.
The curriculum gives students the opportunity to assess local problems and come up with solutions that make sense. “We’re thinking about how to create tools that allow kids to have direct access to data and a personal connection that intersects with their life experiences,” said Robert Parks, curriculum designer at MIT RAISE, at the global Day of AI celebration.
Before this year, freshman Jeremie Kwapong said he knew very little about AI. “I was very intrigued,” he said. “I started experimenting with ChatGPT to see how it would react. How close could I get to human emotion? What does AI know compared to human knowledge?”
In addition to helping students get excited about AI, educators around the world told MIT RAISE they wanted to exploit data science lessons to engage students in conversations about climate change. That’s why the novel Day of AI hands-on projects exploit weather and climate change to show students why it’s critical to develop a critical understanding of data design and collection while observing the world around them.
“In everyday life, there’s a lag between cause and effect,” Parks said. “Our goal is to demystify that and give kids access to the data so they can see things from a broader perspective.”
Tools like MIT App Inventor—which lets anyone build mobile apps—support students understand what they can learn from the data. Fournier, Leeth, and Magenyi programmed TreeSavers in App Inventor to plot regional deforestation rates in Massachusetts, identify current trends using statistical models, and predict environmental impacts. The students put this “long-term view” of climate change into practice by creating interactive TreeSavers maps. Users can toggle between current tree cover in Massachusetts, historical data, and future high-risk areas.
While AI provides quick answers, it doesn’t necessarily offer equitable solutions, said David Sittenfeld, director of the Center for the Environment at the Museum of Science. The Day of AI curriculum asks students to make decisions about how to acquire data, ensure that data is unbiased and think responsibly about how the results might be used.
“There are ethical concerns about tracking people’s data,” said Ethan Jorda, a student at the Fresh England Innovation Academy. His group used open-source data to program an app that helps users track and reduce their carbon footprint.
Christine Cunningham, senior vice president for STEM learning at the Museum of Science, believes students are prepared to responsibly exploit AI to make the world a better place. “They can see themselves shaping the world they live in,” Cunningham said. “By moving from understanding to doing, kids will never look at a bridge or a piece of plastic on the ground the same way again.”
Deepening cooperation on Earth and beyond
Speakers at AI Day 2024 emphasized collaboration to solve problems at local, national and global levels.
“With different ideas and different perspectives, we’re going to be able to find better solutions,” Cunningham said. “How do we start early enough so that every child has a chance to both understand the world around them and move toward shaping the future?”
Presenters from MIT, the Museum of Science, and NASA approached the topic with a common goal — expanding STEM education to students of all ages and backgrounds.
“We were pleased to partner with the MIT RAISE team to bring this year’s AI Day celebration to the Museum of Science,” says Meg Rosenburg, operations manager for the Museum of Science Centers for Public Science Learning. “This opportunity to highlight new climate modules in the curriculum not only aligns perfectly with the Museum’s goals to focus on climate and active hope as part of our Year of the Earthshot initiative, but it also allowed us to connect our teams and develop a relationship that we look forward to building on in the future.”
Rachel Connolly, Systems Integration and Analytics Lead NASA Science Activation Programdemonstrated the power of collaboration through how human understanding of Saturn’s appearance has evolved. From Galileo’s early telescope to the Cassini spacecraft, current imaging of Saturn represents 400 years of science, technology, and mathematics working together to advance our understanding.
“The technologies and the engineers who developed them are expanding the questions we can ask and, by extension, what we can understand,” said Connolly, a research scientist at the MIT Media Lab.
Students at the Fresh England Innovation Academy saw an opportunity to collaborate a little closer to home. Emmett Buck-Thompson, Jeff Cheng, and Max Hunt envisioned a social media app that would connect volunteers with local charities. Their project was inspired by Buck-Thompson’s father’s struggles to find volunteer opportunities, Hunt’s role as president of the school’s Community Impact Club, and Cheng’s aspiration to reduce social media screen time. Using MIT App Inventor, their combined ideas led to a prototype that had the potential to make a real impact in their community.
The Day of AI curriculum teaches AI mechanics, ethical considerations and responsible exploit, and interdisciplinary applications across disciplines. It also empowers students to become artistic problem solvers and engaged citizens in their communities and online. From supporting volunteer efforts to encouraging action on state forests and addressing the global challenge of climate change, today’s students become tomorrow’s leaders with Day of AI.
“We want you to know that this is a tool that you can use to improve your community and help the people around you with this technology,” Breazeal said.
Other AI Day speakers include: Tim Ritchie, president of the Science Museum; Michael Lawrence Evans, program director of the Boston Mayor’s Office of Fresh Urban Mechanics; Dava Newman, director of the MIT Media Lab; and Natalie Lao, executive director of the App Inventor Foundation.