Maryam Saqib is a Day of AI Australia Classroom Champion who has been delivering lessons in Perth since 2024 as part of our efforts to reach students in government schools. As teachers all across Australia prepare to celebrate National Science Week in August, Maryam reflects on how our annual Student Challenge is a great way to foster curiosity in science.
National Science Week runs from 15-23 August. This year’s theme is ‘Seeds of Science: Nurturing Knowledge for All’, and I’ve seen what that actually looks like in a classroom.
‘I quite like money, and if using AI gets us to make more money, isn’t that a good thing?’
This was an argument presented by a student in one of the workshops I was delivering to students in Years 5 and 6. We were discussing the ethics of using AI through a hypothetical scenario. A museum owner had to decide whether to place AI-generated artwork in an exhibition alongside pieces created only by human artists or photographers.
There was intense discussion in the classroom. Some students were outraged over minimising the effort of people who had spent decades dedicated to their craft. Some students were in the middle, being pragmatic about how a situation like this would pan out. And then there were some who felt that the student was right — that making more money from the exhibition was what mattered. They argued that art created by AI is still art, and questioned who had the right to define what art was anyway?
I took a moment to look around the classroom and smiled. Moments like these are why I love working as a Classroom Champion with Day of AI Australia.
I travel to primary and secondary schools across Perth, delivering workshops that introduce students to the fundamentals of what AI is and how it works, the ethical questions surrounding its use, before finishing the day with the Student Challenge.
Available as a free 60 minute classroom activity for students in Years 5-10, the Student Challenge asks students to identify a real-world problem and design an AI-powered idea that could help address it.
Students work in pairs or small groups and create a three minute presentation explaining their idea. Teachers can use the activity as a standalone classroom project or submit presentations to Day of AI Australia for judging and a chance to win part of $6,000 worth of classroom prizes.
How the Student Challenge turns curiosity into action
At its core, the Student Challenge encourages students to look closely at their surroundings and reflect on the problems affecting their communities, whether locally or globally.
Each team chooses an issue connected to one of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals such as reducing poverty, gender inequality or protecting marine life. They then explore how AI might contribute to a solution.
The process gives students a practical way to connect science and technology with issues that have a direct impact on people and the planet. It’s particularly relevant during National Science Week, when students are being encouraged to ask questions, explore ideas and think about how science can make a difference.
Although the Student Challenge takes place at the end of the workshop, I prepare students for it throughout the day by asking how they would use AI to solve issues that affect them.
Once that seed of curiosity is planted, the students often have bursts of ideas throughout the workshop, and I encourage them to hold onto those moments because they usually become the inspiration for their final projects.
The lesson materials include a student workbook that guides teams through a clear design thinking process, helping them move from an initial problem to a considered solution.
Learning to question and strengthen their ideas
Students often know what problem they want to solve and how AI might help, but they don’t always think about what would need to happen for their idea to work in real life.
Once they have their initial idea, I encourage them to keep questioning it. How could it work? What information would the AI need? Who would benefit from it? Could anyone be left out or negatively affected?
These questions help students look beyond the idea itself and think more carefully about how it could be developed.
During a recent Years 5–6 workshop, I had a pair of students choose Better Health as their UN goal, with a desire to create an AI-powered machine which would be supplied to rural areas where healthcare is inaccessible. The machine would scan an individual and provide diagnoses, recommend further tests where needed and suggest potential over-the-counter treatment options.
I asked them what data they might need to train their AI model and whether there was a chance of bias occurring, since many medical datasets are based on studies involving specific ethnicities and communities. Could the machine inadvertently misdiagnose patients? They were surprised to learn that these issues already exist in healthcare, which led to us discussing how gender inequality is also something they would need to consider when training their AI model.
Their idea did not change completely, but the way they thought about it did. They began to see that creating a solution is not only about what the technology can do, but also how the technological solutions may impact different communities and, most importantly, why they care about them in the first place. The ‘why’ is what drives these students to come up with such extraordinary, out-of-the-box ideas because they genuinely want to see positive change.
How the challenge supports learning at different ages
In the workshops I have delivered, younger and older students will often approach the challenge in different ways and gain different things from the experience.
Younger students tend to be less constrained by assumptions of what is or isn’t possible. Their ideas can be imaginative, difficult to refine and wonderfully original.
For these students, the challenge provides a structure for turning that imagination into a more developed idea. They begin to consider how their solution might work and the impact it may have on others.
Older students can be a little more hesitant to participate, but the discussions are often deeper and centred on issues that directly affect their lives.
They raise questions about misinformation, harmful AI-generated content, how generative AI is changing the way they learn, and the environmental and societal impacts the backend of GenAI models have such as the Data-centres that support the constant usage of these machines 24/7.
For older students, the challenge creates space to investigate these complex issues, challenge their existing assumptions and consider the role they can have in shaping how AI is used.
Every time I run a session, I’m in awe of these young individuals who are so passionate about the things that matter to them. When they commit to an idea, it’s rarely for superficial reasons. They genuinely want to improve the world around them.
Across every age group, the Student Challenge encourages students to think critically about technology and the future they want to create. In the end, it’s less about the solution they arrive at and more about driving the curiosity to ask questions, the willingness to challenge assumptions and the desire to change their world for the better.
Bring the Student Challenge to your classroom AI literacy to your classroom
National Science Week (15-23 August) is an ideal time to introduce students to the Day of AI Australia Student Challenge, although teachers can deliver the activity at any time during Term 3.
Entries for the 2026 Student Challenge close at 5:00 pm AEST on 25 September 2026, giving students time to partner up, brainstorm, refine their ideas and prepare their three minute presentations.
Resources for the Student Challenge are available to registered teachers. It is free for all Australian educators to register with Day of AI Australia. That includes science club leaders, tutors, and home schools.
