As part of our project Teaching with a Pinch of AI, we have set up a challenge for primary and secondary school students. Teachers from the schools who already participate in a sister project of (Pumice) - Artificial Intelligence for and by Teachers (AI4T), were invited to take part. 91 teachers from 56 different schools (23 primary schools and 33 secondary schools) from all over Slovenia have expressed interest.

To design the challenge, we have selected data on 100,000 Slovenians with the 200 most common surnames, their approximate locations on the map and the corresponding municipalities. The data base was taken from the activity “Slovenian Surnames”, and upgraded for the challenge.

The challenge is divided into four parts. Each contains a short video clip followed by a question that the participants have to answer, using what they have learned while watching the clip.

It is advisable that an educational video aimed at students is kept within a duration of up to 6 minutes, although for maximum effect, the recommended length is between 2 and 5 minutes. This is the time span in which it is said that students can still maintain their focus. Considering this, it made sense to divide our content into several parts. Contentwise, the videos are varied enough to keep the content engaging, while at the same time, they build on each other to create a complete story.

The idea is that students solve the challenges independently, although it’s perfectly normal if they get stuck along the way at some point. As the creators of the challenge will not be visiting schools in person to help with the activities, we have prepared special teaching material that teachers can use to tackle any challenges that may arise. The material is divided into four chapters, related to the four sets of videos and the questions posed. In these sections, teachers can get additional insights into the building blocks behind the content, and can see the right answers to the questions. Since there are several possible ways to get to the correct answer, it’s important to note that only the one hinted at in the corresponding sectiton of each video, is presented in this resource.

Once the participants successfully complete the challenge, they will each receive a T-shirt as a reward. We hope the students will have fun participating, and that the challenge will perhaps inspire them to also explore data on their own sometimes.

What about you? Would you also want to give playing with data in Orange a try? You can download the (for now still test) Slovenian version of Orange for MS Windows or for mac OS and try it out.