During the Fall and Winter 2025-2026 quarters of the school year, I worked as a co-teacher with Mr. Trey Smith at Marian Anderson Neighborhood Academy to prototype a project-based civic learning unit on Artificial Intelligence for sixth through eighth grade students. Instead of teaching students how to simply use AI tools, we asked them to examine AI as a force within society, tracing its influence across multiple realms, like corporations, the government, the environment, media and intellectual properties, and cognitive function.
Students entered each of these realms through accessible artifacts such as political cartoons and commercials; they built technical understanding through programs like Teachable Machines; and they developed argumentative and informative essays on AI topics of their own choosing. The students’ projects culminated in an AI symposium where students shared their project drafts with the community, connecting their work to audiences beyond the classroom.
This Spring quarter focused on analyzing and reflecting, with the help of Dr. Colin Hennessy Elliott. We combed through classroom observations, interviewed students about their experience, and assessed what worked, what did not, and why. Our findings keep returning to reflection as a key aspect in the entire unit. Students first arrived with polarized feelings about AI. They would dismiss it as “slop” or defend it as a genuine tool. Reflection allows for meaningful learning, as educational growth only begins once these feelings are surfaced and understood.
In the upcoming Summer quarter, we will translate these findings into multiple resources for educators on AI in society, and how to approach it through an interdisciplinary lens. The materials will begin with assessing student background knowledge and will anticipate the friction points we documented, especially the transitions into core academic tasks such as structuring essays, integrating citations, and writing with evidence. Above all, the resources will treat reflection as a discipline rather than an afterthought, both for students making sense of the growing technology and for educators who will examine their own biases before bringing AI into the classroom.
Ultimately, this project aimed to “educate and then advocate,” by utilizing reflective practices stemming from Environmental Justice.