These activities and questions have been designed for you to facilitate engaging discussions with your student about the STEM jobs they’ve encountered in their Learning Blade schoolwork. Here is an overview of what is included.
Table Talk: These are questions you can ask your student without having any background knowledge in STEM. These will be easy conversation starters.
Dig Deeper: These are questions with suggested links to explore different STEM careers with your student.
Home Lab: This is an easy, hands-on activity to do with your STEM student.
What Has Your Student Been Learning?
In the online Artificial Intelligence mission, your student will become familiar with various aspects of artificial intelligence and its uses. Along the way, the student will become familiar with various forms of artificial intelligence and how they can be useful to average citizens and experts such as machine learning engineers, data scientists, AI research scientists, robotics engineers, and AI ethicists.
TABLE TALK
Starter Question
In this mission, your student learned about doctors and medical researchers who use artificial intelligence and machine learning to diagnose disease. Talk to your student about how incredible that is. Then, discuss how you think artificial intelligence and machine learning are transforming health care by allowing for earlier and more accurate diagnoses, personalized treatment plans, and earlier medical research innovations.
Check out this video to see how artificial intelligence is being used in medicine: link.learningblade.com/aidd What other industries could benefit from the use of machine learning and artificial intelligence?
Can you think of anything in your home that you wish utilized machine learning and artificial intelligence?
Resources for More Information:
In this section, we provide a series of links and associated questions to DIG DEEPER into individual careers addressed in the Artificial Intelligence mission. Feel free to explore these with your STEM student as you model curiosity and lifelong learning.
Concerns that artificial intelligence will replace jobs exist in many different industries. While this may be true, artificial intelligence will likely create new opportunities in these fields.
This website explains why this might be the case. Which industry do you think will have the most growth in opportunities due to artificial intelligence? link.learningblade.com/aishf
Machine learning engineers use their knowledge of computer science to create algorithms that are capable of machine learning.
This website provides an overview of the machine learning engineer job and includes a list of skills and qualifications needed for it. What skills do you possess that might make machine learning engineering the ideal career for your future? link.learningblade.com/wmle
Data scientists sometimes use machine learning systems and artificial intelligence to find insights. They also use artificial intelligence to enhance their data further.
This website explains the complementary relationship between data scientists and artificial intelligence. If you were on a team working with both artificial intelligence and data science, would you prefer to focus on AI algorithms or choose another way to find information? link.learningblade.com/adwd
HOME LAB
In the Artificial Intelligence mission, students learn about machine learning and artificial intelligence as well as the careers involved in each. Artificial intelligence can also just be used for fun, of course. For instance, AI can be employed to create the backgrounds for your very own digital dance party.
Code.org Digital Dance Party
1. Open your web browser and navigate to the Code a Dance Party webpage at link.learningblade.com/cadp. Click on Start Dance Party: AI Edition. Then, hit Continue on the bottom-left corner of the page.
2. You will be prompted to add your age. Be sure to respond honestly during this step.
3. This brings up a screen where you will code your very first dance member! Drag the red block to fit in the orange setup block like a puzzle piece. Then, drag the purple block to fit right under the red block. You can then customize the blocks with a drop-down arrow. Be sure to hit Run (below the cat) once your character is coded. (Note: You will be prompted to fix any errors there may be with your code blocks.)
4. Now, you will be prompted to move on to the next puzzle. Hit Continue. Next, add the Generate AI Effect block next to the orange setup block. Click on the black box within the Generate AI Effect block. This will bring up the AI. Click the three emojis that best fit the feel you would like for the background of your dance party for that particular character. Then, click Generate. Once generated, click on Use this effect. (If you do not like this effect, you can click Regenerate until you achieve your desired effect.) Click Run. You now will be finished with Puzzle 3. Click Continue
5. For Puzzle 4, you will take what you have learned to add a new character and add different music. The Select music tab is found on the top left of the coding area. Use Steps 3 and 4 to complete this puzzle. (Do not forget to click Run.) Once Puzzle 4 is completed, click Continue.
6. Puzzle 5 asks you to change the effect generated by the AI. Click on the black box within the Generate AI Effect block once again and click Regenerate. Once you find an effect you enjoy, click Use effect Then, run the code to be alerted that you have completed this puzzle.
7. You will now use different keys to tell your specific dancers when to move in Puzzle 6. To do this, click Run to start the song and then the right and left arrows to make the dancers move. Once you do this, you will be prompted to move on to the next puzzle. Click Continue
8. For Puzzle 7, you will take what you have learned in the previous puzzles to make a dancer move when a specific key is pressed. Move the purple block under the green block. Use the drop-down menus to customize your key and dance move. Click Run, and once the puzzle is complete, click Continue.
9. Click Run on Puzzle 8 to watch each AI-generated effect change with a coded number of measures. Once this is complete and you have been alerted that you have finished Puzzle 8, click Continue
10. Puzzle 9 asks you to connect a Generate AI Effect block to the green at 2 measures event. Use the AI to generate a background as you have done in previous steps. Click Run. You will then be alerted that you have completed this puzzle. Click Continue
11. You will now use all of the knowledge you have gained in the previous puzzles to code your own dance party and complete Puzzle 10. Use your knowledge and get creative! Hit Finish once you are done.
Further Digital Dance Party
Use the digital dance party and AI to create a new dance party. This time, create a dance party with a specific theme throughout the various scenes.
