Grade 3: Discovering Artificial Intelligence

Discovering Artificial Intelligence

Approximate Total Time: 5–6 class periods (45–60 minutes each, including Career Spotlight)

Recommended for Ages 8–9 (typically U.S. Grade 3)

About This Unit

Students build a foundational understanding of artificial intelligence by exploring what AI is, how it learns from data, and how it makes predictions. They investigate how human decisions influence AI systems, examine why data quality matters, and discover how AI solves real-world problems and supports careers in machine learning.

Lessons

1. What Is AI?
Students develop a shared understanding of artificial intelligence, distinguish AI from other technologies, and use evidence to determine whether everyday technologies use AI.

2. Can Machines Really Learn?
Students investigate how AI systems learn from examples and data by recognizing patterns and making predictions.

3. What Is a Learning Algorithm?
Students explore how learning algorithms identify patterns in data, compare them with traditional algorithms, and practice creating and testing classification rules.

4. How Do Machines Learn?
Students investigate supervised learning by training an AI model with labeled examples and exploring how training data influences predictions.

5. Bias in Artificial Intelligence
Students examine how incomplete or unrepresentative datasets can affect AI systems and explore ways to improve them.

6. Career Spotlight: Machine Learning Engineer
Students explore how machine learning engineers design, test, and improve AI systems and use AI to address real-world problems.