Lesson 1: What is Artificial Intelligence?

1Hook and Engagement (5 minutes)

Begin with a "mystery demonstration" where you show students several examples of AI in action. Display voice recognition responding to commands, image identification tools recognizing objects in photos, or predictive text suggesting words as you type. Generate excitement and curiosity!

Guiding Questions:

• "How do you think the computer knew what to do?"
• "Have you ever used technology that seemed to know what you wanted?"
• "What makes this different from a regular computer program?"

Collect student responses on chart paper. Introduce the essential question: "What is artificial intelligence and how does it work in our daily lives?"

2Direct Instruction (10 minutes)

Present age-appropriate definitions and examples of AI. Use concrete analogies to make abstract concepts accessible:

Key Teaching Points:

• The Pet Analogy: "Think about teaching a dog a trick. You show them the trick many times, reward them when they do it right, and eventually they learn. AI learns in a similar way - by seeing many examples and getting feedback!"
• Pattern Recognition: "AI is really good at finding patterns, just like you might notice that every time it's cloudy, it usually rains later."
• Human + AI Partnership: "AI doesn't replace humans - it helps us do things better and faster. Humans are still needed to teach AI, make important decisions, and be creative!"

Show Visual Examples:

• Voice assistants (Alexa, Siri, Google Assistant)
• Recommendation systems (YouTube suggestions, Netflix recommendations)
• Smart devices (thermostats that learn your preferences)
• Game opponents (AI that learns from how you play)

Emphasize that AI helps humans but doesn't replace human creativity, empathy, and judgment.

3Hands-On Activity: "Human vs. AI" Sorting Game (15 minutes)

Divide students into small groups of 3-4 and distribute the sorting cards with various tasks. Students will categorize tasks into three groups:

• "Humans do best" - Tasks requiring creativity, empathy, or complex judgment
• "AI helps" - Tasks involving pattern recognition, large-scale data, or repetitive actions
• "Both work together" - Tasks where humans and AI collaborate

Example Task Cards:

• Recognizing a friend's face in a crowd
• Calculating 1,847 × 563
• Creating a piece of art that expresses feelings
• Finding patterns in weather data
• Showing empathy to someone who is sad
• Playing chess
• Translating languages
• Diagnosing a medical condition
• Driving a car
• Writing a story

Group Discussion Prompts:

• "Why did you put this task in this category?"
• "Can you think of real-world examples where AI helps with this task?"
• "What would happen if AI tried to do this completely alone?"

Circulate among groups, ask probing questions, and note interesting insights to share with the whole class.

4Interactive Demonstration (10 minutes)

If technology permits, demonstrate a simple AI training tool like Google's Teachable Machine. This concrete experience helps students understand that AI learns from examples.

Demonstration Steps:

1. Show students an "untrained" model that doesn't know anything yet
2. Collect examples of 2-3 different classes (e.g., "thumbs up," "thumbs down," "peace sign")
3. Train the model by showing it many examples of each gesture
4. Test the model and show how it gets better with more training data
5. Demonstrate what happens when you show it something it wasn't trained on

Discussion Questions:

• "What did we have to do to teach the AI?"
• "How is this similar to how you learn new things?"
• "What happened when we showed it more examples?"
• "Why did it make mistakes sometimes?"

Connect this demonstration back to the concept that AI learns from patterns in data, just like students learn from practice and examples.

5Closure and Reflection (5 minutes)

Distribute the "AI Around Us" worksheet where students identify three places they encounter AI in their daily lives. Students should:

• Draw or write about the AI application
• Explain what the AI does
• Describe how it helps people

Class Sharing: Invite 3-5 volunteers to share one example from their worksheet.

Formative Assessment - Exit Ticket:
Students answer questions on their exit ticket:

1. "Turn to your partner and explain what AI is in your own words." (Teacher observes and records)
2. "What is one thing you learned about AI today?"
3. "What is one question you still have about AI?"

Collect exit tickets to inform future lessons and address misconceptions.