Artificial Intelligence is already transforming how young people live, learn, and connect, yet so many students lack opportunities to understand how it works or how they can use it ethically and effectively. Teachers, too, need support getting comfortable with AI so they can both confidently instruct their students and apply AI tools that can help maximize learning outcomes.
At KID Museum, we’re working to meet this moment by integrating AI into our programs for both youth and educators. Using our signature hands-on approach—grounded in creativity, reflection, and a focus on social good—we aim to build not just technical fluency, but confidence, curiosity, and critical thinking.
Last month, KID Museum Executive Director Cara Lesser contributed to the national conversation on AI in education through two panel discussions. On May 1, she spoke at the University of Maryland’s AI+Learning Symposium on Preparing Students for an AI-Infused Future. The following week, she joined a panel at CrossRoads 2025, hosted by Infosys Foundation USA, focused on Nurturing the Maker Mindset and Creativity with AI.
In both conversations, Cara shared how KID’s Mind of a Maker framework is helping young people and educators engage with AI and Machine Learning models not as passive users, but as creative problem-solvers and ethical innovators. Our approach emphasizes understanding how these tools work, how to use them to invent and design, and how to mitigate risks—while also cultivating the fundamentally human skills that drive meaningful innovation: curiosity, agency, and empathy.
Teach for the Future participants listen attentively to KID educator Sydney Lee.
Here are just a few of the ways we’re bringing that vision to life across our programs:
Teen Innovators: Exploring AI for Social Good
In this semester-long program for high school students, teens explore the role of technology in shaping their lives and communities—especially artificial intelligence. Through hands-on projects, students train machine learning models using tools like Teachable Machine and Raise Playground, and integrate them into interactive exhibits, games, and physical builds.
In one culminating project, students designed interactive exhibits to help younger museum visitors understand how AI works. Using tools like Teachable Machine, they trained image recognition models and embedded them into hands-on demos, games, and displays. As they tested their models, students quickly noticed a problem: Systems trained only on their own faces often failed to recognize peers with different skin tones, hairstyles, or features. Only after expanding their datasets to include a broader range of features did their models become more accurate. These firsthand experiences led to rich discussions about fairness, representation, and the critical role of training data—conversations sparked not by theory, but through making and reflection.
Maker Girls: Building AI Confidence Through Invention
Maker Girls is our middle school invention program designed to empower girls as confident, creative problem-solvers. As part of the curriculum, participants explore AI through a wearable tech challenge. They train machine learning models to recognize movements like jumps or spins, then design wearables that respond with lights, sound, or motion.
By connecting AI to personal interests like dance, fashion, or storytelling, girls begin to see these powerful tools as something they can shape and play with—not something reserved for experts. The focus is on building confidence and STEM identity, helping participants see themselves as builders, not just users, of technology.
Teach for the Future: Equipping Educators with Tools and Confidence
Our Teach for the Future fellowship supports classroom teachers in bringing innovation and emerging technologies into their practice. In our AI learning module, educators take part in the same kinds of hands-on exploration as our students—training simple models using Teachable Machine, integrating AI into physical builds or Scratch animations, and experimenting with how these tools can support student-driven learning across content areas.
Rather than overwhelming educators with technical complexity, we create space for play, reflection, and collaboration—helping teachers build the confidence and strategies to integrate AI meaningfully into their classrooms while fostering equity, creativity, and student agency.
Across all our programs, KID is committed to helping young people and educators engage with AI in ways that are playful, powerful, and purposeful. We believe that the future of education requires not only technical fluency, but also the ability to question, imagine, and create. And we’re excited to keep exploring what’s possible—together.
We truly believe this holistic approach to using machine learning is essential, and KID is excited to continue the conversation on how AI can be a positive force in education.
