AI for Youth AcademyFuture Scholars Research Initiative
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Year 2

Critical Thinking

Fall 2026

Eight Saturday sessions, sixty minutes each, six students. Every week opens with a short challenge, moves into a hands-on activity, and ends with one sentence to carry out the door. Nothing to read in advance; bring a pencil and an open mind.

Learn to notice when you are being fooled, including by yourself and by AI, and to say how sure you are before you act on an answer.

Course focus

Key themes

  • Weekly challenges that test a habit of mind before naming it
  • Hands-on activities with cards, blocks, sticky notes, and a few web tools
  • A running score across all eight weeks, revealed at the end
  • AI as a case study: what it gets right, what it hides, and how to check it

Hands-on moments

  • Estimate, guess, argue, and check, then find out how you did.
  • Build and break arguments in teams.
  • Interrogate an AI answer line by line.

Outcomes

  • Tell the difference between what you know and what you assume.
  • Change your mind when the evidence says so, and say so out loud.
  • Treat every claim, whoever or whatever makes it, as something you can check.

Week-by-week plan

Subject to change based on cohort pace and feedback.

  1. 01

    A Quick Quiz

    No lecture today. Thirteen questions, then some numbers you will not expect.

    Open slides
  2. 02

    Three Numbers

    A sequence, a hidden rule, and a box of coloured blocks.

    Open slides
  3. 03

    Score This Page

    Three minutes with a website. Then we open a new tab.

    Open slides
  4. 04

    The Sales Pitch

    A short game, then each team makes a poster. The other teams try to see through it.

    Open slides
  5. 05

    Phones in School

    Write down your reasons. Then we sort them with three colours of sticky notes.

    Open slides
  6. 06

    Only Questions

    For twenty minutes, nobody is allowed to answer anything.

    Coming soon
  7. 07

    Grade the Essay

    An AI writes 300 words with references. You give it a score. Then we look closer.

    Coming soon
  8. 08

    The Tournament

    Every team sets traps for the others. Then one sentence each, and a curve.

    Coming soon