Working with our partners, the Scottish A.I Alliance (SAIA) and The Alan Turing Institute (ATI), we are exploring with children how they interact with A.I, what they think the possibilities and risks are for the use of A.I in Scotland, and how they can become meaningfully involved in A.I development and policy.
Taking a child rights approach, we have been asking Members of Children’s Parliament (MCPs) to think about what needs to happen for A.I to play a role in keeping all children happy, healthy, and safe. To capture a broad range of views and to reflect the diversity of experiences of children in Scotland, we are working with classes ranging from P4 to P7 in primary schools in Glasgow, Stirling, Edinburgh, Shetland and Dundee. Stages 1 to 3 have now been completed, and you can find our reports, films and the children’s calls to action below. In the final stage of the project we also worked with children, teachers, and our partners to create two new resources to support adults and children across Scotland to learn about the relationship between A.I and children’s human rights.
Children’s Rights and AI Teaching Pack
AI should be in the curriculum. AI will be in all our lives, so we need to learn and understand what it means before we grow up.
Member of Children’s Parliament
In direct response to the children’s calls to action and the clear gap highlighted in responses to our national survey of school teachers, we have produced a comprehensive resource pack to support children in primary school to learn about Artificial Intelligence (AI) through a children’s human rights approach.
Developed in partnership with the Scottish AI Alliance and The Alan Turing Institute, these resources give educators a practical, ethical and age-appropriate way to bring AI learning into the classroom that puts children and their rights at the centre of the conversation. The activities in the resource pack have been designed, tested and edited with the support of both children and teachers.
The pack includes 6 lesson plans with clear learning objectives for children in P5 to P7 including:
Easy-to-follow and ready to use lesson plans on understanding and exploring AI in relation to children’s lived experience and their human rights
Real-life scenarios to explore fairness, safety and privacy
Animated explainer videos created by children for children
Tools for critical thinking, discussion and creativity
The ideas for interactive games are great. I don’t think I have ever seen lesson plans with such detailed explanatory and background notes!
Lucy, Primary School Teacher, Edinburgh
Why Children’s Rights Matter in AI – a learning resource for adults
To communicate what we have learned about children’s rights and the impacts of AI on children’s lives with adult professionals who use and develop AI systems, we have created an eLearning resource. These five short modules (in the form of interactive slides hosted in the Scottish AI Playbook) guide users through an introduction to children’s human rights and why they are relevant to AI. The latter part of the resource draws directly from Members of Children’s Parliament’s calls to action on AI. These are the changes that children themselves have called for to ensure AI supports children to be happy, healthy and safe. The resource prompts users to reflect on their own practice and any direct or indirect implications for children of the decisions that they make in regard to AI at work.
Understanding the impacts of generative AI use on children
In the Autumn of 2024, we worked with the Alan Turing Institute on a project funded by the Lego Group on the impact of generative AI use on children’s rights and wellbeing. We worked with children in schools in Dundee and Edinburgh to give them opportunities to explore using generative AI (and/or traditional art materials) for a series of creative challenges reflecting on their identities. The report on this work has now been published by The Alan Turing Institute and can be found – along with more information about the project and their wider work – on their website here.
Stage 2 Report
AI will be in all our lives, so we need to know what it means and how it works before we grow up.
Member of Children’s Parliament, age 9, Shetland
Our latest report is a summary of the progress and findings of Stage 2 of the project and includes a detailed account of the children’s exploration of key themes in relation to children’s human rights and A.I. Through workshops and sessions facilitated by Children’s Parliament and a range of partners, MCPs gained hands-on experience which helped them to deepen their understanding of how A.I interacts with their rights and clarify their thoughts and feelings on these matters. This led to the development of the children’s 12 Calls to Action (see below).
The report concludes with what we have learned about what matters to children when it comes to A.I and its relationship with children’s human rights.
The Children’s Calls to Action
As a result of their exploration of the four themes in Stage 2, Members of Children’s Parliament have developed twelve ‘Calls to Action’ which identify where children think changes need to be made by decision-makers for children’s human rights to be upheld in the development and use of A.I in Scotland.
Download our leaflet with the children’s Calls to Action here:
You can watch the children explaining the Calls to Actions themselves here:
National Survey 2024 Exploring the views of school staff
Children’s Parliament worked with four schools across the first two stages of the project. Following this, we sought the views of school staff from across Scotland, with the aim of gaining a clear understanding on how prepared and supported they feel to explore the topic of A.I with children. A national survey was conducted in May and June 2024. The survey collected the views of more than 500 school leaders, teachers and support staff, all of whom work with children up to the age of 14.
The survey gathered responses on staff confidence in their own knowledge of the subject, what support and resources they had been made aware of, and their own use of A.I. A final open question asked them for their views on the impact of A.I on children’s rights within education.
Below, we share some of the findings. The full results of the survey will form part of the evidence for the project’s final report.
Findings
The survey results show that teachers and school staff in Scotland currently lack confidence and support in teaching children about A.I. Of the respondents, 71% had no or low confidence in addressing the subject with their pupils, and 79% had received no guidance on the use of A.I. 93% had not accessed any resources to support teaching children about A.I.
Despite a lack of guidance and support for school staff, at least 45% of those surveyed have used A.I tools in the classroom with children. When considering the children’s call to action – that teachers should learn about A.I and children’s rights to support children’s learning and to keep them safe – the survey findings identify an urgent need for training and resources. A clear positive from the survey is that most school staff feel confident in their understanding of children’s human rights. It is hoped that their understanding will put them in a good position to support children to comprehend the potential impacts of A.I on their lives.
Interestingly, only 11% of respondents reported using A.I to help them manage their workload outside of the classroom, for tasks such as report writing or tracking pupil progress. This is despite suggestions that a major benefit of A.I to the Scottish education sector is its potential to reduce bureaucratic workload. Support for linking the teaching of A.I to children’s rights was high, with 60% of respondents saying they would be more likely to use A.I resources if they were accompanied with relevant children’s rights context. In the survey, we also asked school staff what resources would be most useful to them. Activity packs for use in the classroom and video explainers for children were the two most popular responses. In the 2024-25 academic year, Children’s Parliament is working with children to create these resources.
National Survey 2023 Exploring the views of children
Over 1,200 children living in Scotland completed a digital survey in June 2023 which explored their views and ideas on A.I, and its use and development in relation to their human rights. Each survey was completed anonymously by children aged eight-14 years old, supported by school staff but independently filled out by children. The survey and accompanying facilitation instructions for teachers and other supporting adults were designed and produced by Children’s Parliament. Have a look at some of the key results in the charts and word maps shown on the graphic.
Children could express their views and ideas in more depth through two open-ended questions on the survey if they wished; the answers to those questions will form a part of the evidence for the project’s next report.
Findings
The survey results show a clear need for improved education around A.I for children. 57% of children said they know only a bit about A.I, and 21% said they knew nothing at all. Combined with the fact that 61% of children also told us that they don’t learn about A.I in school, this shows a definite gap in the curriculum on the topic for primary-school aged children and beyond.
56% said that it is important for children, including younger children, to know about A.I, and that the best ways for them to learn about it are through ‘teaching more in school’, ‘taking [them] to places where [they] can find out about it’, and ‘adults talking more with [them] about A.I.’
A general feeling of uncertainty around A.I was also reflected in children’s answers to the question ‘would you like to have a say about how A.I is used in Scotland?’, with 36% responding ‘unsure’ and only 32% responding ‘yes’. Meanwhile, a majority of children reported knowing ‘a lot’ about their rights but only ‘a little’ about A.I. This shows that greater access to education on A.I might support children to be rights-bearers and make informed decisions when invited to contribute their views on A.I use and development.
While feelings such as ‘nervous, ‘worried’, and ‘sad’ were commonly expressed in relation to A.I, so too were ‘happy’, ‘excited’, and ‘relaxed’, and children frequently expressed the view that A.I is used for helping people. Children let us know that it is important for them to know and learn about A.I because it helps them feel safe and will help them prepare better for their futures.
Exploring Children’s Rights and A.I Stage 1
In Stage One of the project the children were introduced to A.I and Children’s Rights, and they identified 4 key themes, you can read the report and watch the film below.
Stage 1 Report
It is important for children to know about artificial intelligence because it is the future and it is good to learn new things when they affect our lives.
Member of Children’s Parliament, age 10, Glasgow
The Stage 1 summary report provides an overview of the first stage of the project. The children shared their insights through a combination of in-person workshops in schools and regular online sessions with a selected group of ‘Investigators’. They told us how they interact with A.I in Scotland today; their views on how A.I is currently used in their schools and communities; what their hopes and fears are with regards to A.I in the future; and how they feel about children’s involvement in A.I development and policy making.
The children’s work enabled us to narrow the focus of the next two stages of the project to the four following themes, which the children have identified as areas that need further exploration: Fairness and Bias, Safety and Security, A.I and Education and The Future of A.I.
To find out more about how A.I affects the lives of children in Scotland, please download and read a copy of our report.
