Are you a computing teacher in England, Scotland, or Wales who works with 11- to 14-year-olds and is interested in how young people learn about AI ethics and sustainability? 

The Raspberry Pi Computing Education Research Centre is launching an exciting new research study, and we would love you to get involved.

In this study, we will explore teaching about the impacts of AI on people, the environment, and society. Our aims for the study are to:

• Investigate the opportunities and challenges of teaching about AI ethics and sustainability in secondary computing lessons
• Identify pedagogical approaches for developing students’ ethical reasoning, critical thinking, and agency in relation to AI tools

The study involves attending two in-person workshops in Cambridge, co-designing and teaching a unit of work, and taking part in evaluation activities such as surveys and interviews. Where necessary, we can offer support with the costs of attending the workshops, such as travel, accommodation, and supply cover.

Why focus on AI ethics and sustainability?

According to a recent report, in the UK more than half of 8- to 17-year-olds use AI tools, and as these systems become an increasingly significant part of everyday life, helping young people to critically evaluate their impact is vital.

We recently conducted a scoping literature review to explore what ethical concepts are covered by AI literacy interventions for lower secondary students (11- to 14-year-olds). This work has been accepted for publication at the Frontiers in Education conference, which is taking place in October.

In this work, we used the 10 principles set out in UNESCO’s Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence as a framework for analysis of the ethical concepts covered by the interventions.

Our research showed that when AI ethics is taught to lower secondary students, interventions tend to focus most on concepts such as fairness and privacy. For example, multiple activities explored the important issue of algorithmic bias, teaching students about the causes of bias (such as training AI systems with small or unrepresentative datasets) and discussing real-world examples of bias in AI. 

However, we found that other ethical concepts, such as proportionality and governance, are not often taught. And while a few interventions featured the theme of sustainability, we found that only one directly taught students about the environmental impact of AI itself.

Our new study aims to help address this gap by supporting young people to explore the social and ethical impact of AI tools from a sustainability perspective. Teachers will use real-world examples to engage their students in discussion and ethical reasoning. We hope the findings will support more computing teachers to teach about AI ethics in their lessons, and help students to think critically about the use of AI tools.

What does the study involve?

We are using a design-based research approach to work collaboratively with teachers to co-design a unit of lessons focused on AI ethics and sustainability. 

Participating in the study will involve:

1. Attending two in-person professional development and design workshops in Cambridge (one in early December 2026 and one during the 2027–28 school year)
2. Delivering the co-designed lessons in your classroom (in early 2027 and the spring of  2028)
3. Taking part in evaluation activities such as surveys, classroom observations, and interviews

How can I join the study?

If you teach computing at lower secondary level (Years 7–9 or S1–S3) in England, Scotland, or Wales and would like to help shape the way we teach young people about ethical issues around AI, we would love to hear from you. Please register your interest via the form below.

http://rpf.io/sage-application

If you have any questions about the project, please email katharine.childs@raspberrypi.org.