Grade 6: Behind the Screens-How AI Works

Behind the Screens: How AI Works

Approximate Total Time: 5 class periods (approximately 50 minutes each)

Recommended for Ages 11–12 (typically U.S. Grade 6)

About This Unit

Students develop a foundational understanding of artificial intelligence and how modern AI systems work. They begin by exploring what AI is, how it differs from traditional computer programs, and where AI appears in everyday life. They then investigate how machines learn from data through supervised learning and develop their own machine-learning model.

As the unit progresses, students focus on AI text-generating systems, investigating how they produce outputs and why those outputs can be incomplete, incorrect, misleading, or biased. Finally, students explore how AI automation creates real tradeoffs in the world of work by eliminating some jobs, changing tasks, and creating new roles.

Lessons

1. Is It AI?
Students distinguish between rule-based and data-driven systems and use evidence to classify familiar technologies.

2. Training a Machine
Students train and test an image classification model using labeled examples and investigate how changes in the training data affect predictions and accuracy.

3. Where AI Knowledge Comes From
Students investigate how text-generating AI systems produce outputs from patterns in training data and analyze what may be missing, incorrect, incomplete, or misleading.

4. When AI Gets It Wrong
Students investigate how gaps in training data and human design decisions can contribute to bias and evaluate different ways people can respond.

5. AI, Work, and Who Pays the Price
Students investigate how AI can automate workplace tasks and analyze the benefits, harms, and tradeoffs technological change can create for workers and other stakeholders.