ElementaryAI
Active 2025–2028
Bringing foundational AI literacy to elementary students by having them design conversational companions for their own story characters.
- Where
- North Carolina State University
- With
- Tiffany Barnes, Shiyan Jiang, Xiaoyi Tian, Carrie Robledo, Joanna Perkins, Montgomery County Schools, NC
- Funding
-
- NSF DRL-2524505 $926,299 · 2025–2028
ElementaryAI introduces foundational AI literacy to elementary school students through interdisciplinary learning experiences combining literacy, storytelling and AI creation. Rather than simply interacting with AI tools, students bring story characters and toys to life by designing their own conversational AI companions. Through these activities, learners explore how AI generates responses, why AI can make mistakes, and how thoughtful prompt design can improve chatbot behaviour.
Working closely with elementary teachers, we are co-designing curriculum materials, classroom technologies and professional development that integrate AI literacy into existing instructional practice. Our research examines how young children develop conceptual understanding of AI, how teachers incorporate AI into elementary classrooms, and how creative AI design experiences can foster critical thinking, computational thinking and responsible AI use.