What Can Youth Learn About Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in One Hour? Examining How Hour of Code Activities Address the Five Big Ideas of AI
Abstract
The prominence of artificial intelligence and machine learning in everyday life has led to efforts to foster AI literacy for all K–12 students. In this paper, we review how Hour of Code activities engage with the five big ideas of AI, in particular with machine learning and societal impact. We found that a large majority of activities focus on perception and machine learning, with little attention paid to representation and other topics. A surprising finding was the increased attention paid to critical aspects of computing. However, we also observed a limited engagement with hands-on activities. In the discussion, we address how future introductory activities could be designed to offer a broader array of topics, including the development of tools to introduce novices to artificial intelligence and machine learning and the design of more unplugged and collaborative activities.
Cite
Text
Morales-Navarro et al. "What Can Youth Learn About Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in One Hour? Examining How Hour of Code Activities Address the Five Big Ideas of AI." AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 2025. doi:10.1609/AAAI.V39I28.35193Markdown
[Morales-Navarro et al. "What Can Youth Learn About Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in One Hour? Examining How Hour of Code Activities Address the Five Big Ideas of AI." AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 2025.](https://mlanthology.org/aaai/2025/moralesnavarro2025aaai-youth/) doi:10.1609/AAAI.V39I28.35193BibTeX
@inproceedings{moralesnavarro2025aaai-youth,
title = {{What Can Youth Learn About Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in One Hour? Examining How Hour of Code Activities Address the Five Big Ideas of AI}},
author = {Morales-Navarro, Luis and Kafai, Yasmin B. and Yang, Eric and Suryana, Asep},
booktitle = {AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence},
year = {2025},
pages = {29195-29202},
doi = {10.1609/AAAI.V39I28.35193},
url = {https://mlanthology.org/aaai/2025/moralesnavarro2025aaai-youth/}
}