The University of South Florida (USF) is partnering with local community groups to launch a range of new initiatives aimed at arming K-12 students with artificial intelligence skills.
USF is bringing AI to fourth and fifth grade students through after-school programming that will teach students to analyze and build video games with generative AI, the university newsroom said.
As part of the program, students will use AI to draft video game names, plot ideas, images, dialogue, and research with the aim of developing a responsible understanding of AI and its applications.
The opportunity will be made available to students through a partnership with the Tampa Housing Authority and local community groups and is led by the USF College of Education Interim Dean Jennifer Jasinski Schneider and doctoral candidate Leah Burger.
“When students write augmented reality games with generative AI, they also must navigate many of the important issues prominent within the tool, such as misinformation, and prompt engineering and revision strategies,” Burger said in a statement.
“The students do not just take the generative AI outputs at face value, in fact, many of them use the outputs as the launching for critical thinking toward the tool,” Burger added.
Burger will continue this program throughout the summer during a summer camp for Tampa Public Housing Authority. The USF summer camps related to AI and cybersecurity include USF Bright Minds: AI + STEM Exploration Camp for students in sixth through 10th grade; USF High School CyberCon; USF High School Robotics Camp; and USF Mock Trial: Cybercrime and Law for students in grades 10 through 12.
“We have faculty in every discipline exploring AI,” Schneider said in a statement. “I am challenging our faculty to take this on because this is where we need our focus to be to prepare for the future.”
Other recent efforts the university has taken have included launching TeacherServer, an online platform providing AI resources to teachers that was created by Zafer Unal, a professor at the USF College of Education. The university said it is also currently conducting research on ethical AI integration and using AI in early education.