Discover how artificial intelligence really works, from how computers see and hear to how they learn from examples and talk with people. You will train your own AI model in the browser, test it for fairness, and design an AI helper for your community. No coding experience needed.
Level: Beginner
Ages: 11–14
Time: about 12 hours
Format: Self-paced lessons with self-check questions
Most activities work on paper or with friends and family. The hands-on unit uses Google Teachable Machine, which works in a web browser without signing in. Many AI chat tools require users to be 13 or older, and some require 18 or older. Students under 13 should use AI chat tools only with a parent or guardian.
Outcomes
- Explain what AI is, what it is not, and where it shows up in daily life
- Describe how computers sense images and sound and turn them into data
- Use rules, decision trees and search to solve problems the way early AI did
- Train, test and improve your own image or sound model with Teachable Machine
- Explain how chatbots predict words, why they make things up, and how to prompt safely
- Spot bias, privacy risks and deepfakes, and design a fair AI helper for your community
Unit 1 — What AI is (and isn’t)
- What counts as AI? — 25 min
- AI in your everyday life — 25 min
- What AI can’t do (yet) — 25 min
Unit 2 — How computers sense the world
- Sensors: how machines take in the world — 25 min
- How computers see: from pixels to patterns — 25 min
- How computers hear: sound and speech — 25 min
Unit 3 — How computers represent and reason
- Turning the world into data — 25 min
- Rules and decision trees — 25 min
- Search: how computers find the best path — 25 min
Unit 4 — How machines learn
- Learning from examples, not rules — 25 min
- Training data and labels — 25 min
- Testing: is the model any good? — 25 min
Unit 5 — Train your own model
- Meet Teachable Machine — 25 min
- Build and test an image model — 25 min
- The bad data experiment — 25 min
Unit 6 — Talking machines and generative AI
- How chatbots predict the next word — 25 min
- Why AI makes things up — 25 min
- Prompting basics and staying safe — 25 min
Unit 7 — AI and society
- Bias and fairness in AI — 25 min
- Privacy, deepfakes and trust — 25 min
- AI, jobs and who gets to build it — 25 min
Unit 8 — Capstone: design an AI helper for your community
- Capstone part 1: pick a problem and plan your data — 25 min
- Capstone part 2: build, test and fairness-check — 25 min
- Capstone part 3: pitch your AI helper — 25 min
Start the first lesson: What counts as AI?
Questions? Email support