Day of AI (MIT RAISE)
Ages 5-17 · free · AI Product · dayofai.org ↗
Day of AI is a teacher-led AI literacy curriculum from MIT RAISE. Educators use it to run age-banded lessons, slides, student pages, and professional development materials on topics like machine learning, bias, privacy, and responsible AI use. Younger students work through concrete, device-free activities. Older students train models, debug algorithms, debate ethics, and build action projects tied to climate, rights, and community impact.
Day of AI (MIT RAISE) stands out for developmental impact across multiple literacies. It builds adaptability, cognitive skills. The main growth opportunity: Day of AI is classroom curriculum, not a social product.
Strengths & gaps
Strengths
- ● Day of AI is strongest where AI literacy should be strongest: Curiosity, Adaptability, and Judgment. Kids do not just hear about AI. They train models, test them, and decide when to trust them.
- ● The curriculum makes ethical thinking concrete. Bias, privacy, surveillance, and human oversight show up in actual lessons, not just a teacher note at the end.
- ● It scales cleanly across ages. Young learners get device-free foundations, while older students move into debate, code, and action projects.
Gaps
- ○ Day of AI is classroom curriculum, not a social product. It uses teamwork, but it doesn't try to build Connection as a core outcome.
- ○ Persistence is real but bounded. Students do troubleshoot and revise, but the lessons are mostly short and teacher-paced.
- ○ Purpose is present, but not deep enough to carry the whole product. The civic angle is strong, yet the experience still feels curriculum-led rather than identity-forming.
Detailed scores
How Day of AI (MIT RAISE) performs on each of the 9 literacies in our framework.
Doing
— 1 of 3 Strong
Day of AI gives students choices inside a teacher-set structure. They pick examples, test models, and decide which issue or project to pursue. But the overall path still comes from the curriculum, so this stays Moderate.
The lessons ask students to keep testing and fixing their work. That matters in the machine-learning and debugging units. Still, the product is built around short lessons, not long-form practice.
Day of AI keeps asking students to change course when data, labels, or assumptions are wrong. The curriculum revisits ideas at higher complexity and makes bias visible. That is the kind of revision work adaptability needs.
Thinking
— 2 of 3 Strong
The best units make kids wonder why a model guessed wrong and what would happen if they changed the inputs. Quick Draw, Teachable Machine, and the surveillance simulator all do this well. The curriculum keeps the information gap open instead of closing it too quickly.
Students make posters, apps, debates, and action plans. Some units let them build with App Inventor or Scratch. But the curriculum still hands them the prompt, so this is guided creation rather than a blank canvas.
This curriculum keeps returning to bias, privacy, safety, and trust. Students compare policies, question predictions, and decide what responsible AI use should look like. That repeated decision-making is the core of the product.
Being
— 0 of 3 Strong
There is teamwork in the classroom and some stakeholder perspective-taking. Even so, Day of AI is not trying to build belonging or relationship skills as a product outcome. Connection is outside the scope.
The effort-and-cognitive-debt lesson is the clearest signal here. It teaches students to protect their thinking instead of giving it away to AI. But the curriculum stops short of explicit coping or emotion work.
Human rights, climate, and community action give the work a real point. Kids can see AI as something they might use to help people, not just learn about for its own sake. The curriculum still stays somewhat school-bound, so this remains Moderate.
Based on 12 sources
- Research openlearning.mit.edu — day ai teaches k 12 students about artificial intelligence mit way
- Research news.mit.edu — they can see themselves shaping world they live
- Product dayofai.org — about us
- Product dayofai.org — faq
- Product dayofai.org — curriculum
- Product dayofai.org — how we teach machines
- Product dayofai.org — what is artificial intelligence
- Product dayofai.org — how do machines learn
- Product dayofai.org — ai effort and your brain
- Product dayofai.org — from data to decision ai surveillance and human responsibility
- Product dayofai.org — human rights and artificial intelligence
- Product mos.org — day of ai
Reviewed by New Literacies
Scored by our research-derived framework · AI-assisted analysis with editorial review · 12 sources reviewed · Our methodology →
Personalization bridge
Not sure what your kid needs most?
Take the quiz to see which literacies matter most for your family, then get practical things to try at home.
Get your family profileExplore more
See other products strong in the same literacies: