Seventy-eight inquiry-based lessons spanning thirteen grade levels and six interconnected strands. Built on the Common Sense Media Digital Citizenship framework, extended with the AI4K12 Five Big Ideas, and aligned to California, CSTA, and ISTE standards.
Each strand appears at every grade level, with a signature driving question that deepens as students mature. AI literacy is woven throughout — never siloed, always contextualized in the strand that matters most for that skill.
Each strand is a vertical thread — an enduring question students revisit year after year, with increasing sophistication. The AI strand is new to most districts; the other five have been taught for decades. Here, AI shows up in all six.
Click any cell to open the full lesson plan. Rows are grade levels; columns are strands. The matrix is horizontally scrollable on smaller screens.
| Grade | Media Balance & Wellbeing | Privacy, Safety & Data | Identity & Digital Footprint | Communication & Relationships | Information Literacy & AI Evaluation | AI Foundations & Ethical Creation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| K | Screens On, Screens Off How do I know when to stop using a screen? | My Name Is Mine What about me do I keep to myself online? | My Picture, My Pride What do I like to share with people who care about me? | Kind Voices, Kind Screens How do I talk nicely to someone I can't see? | Real or Make-Believe? Is everything I see on a screen true? | Robots That Listen How does a smart speaker hear me? |
| 1 | My Body Tells Me What does my body say when I've been on a screen too long? | Safe Websites, Safe Me How do I know a website is okay for me? | What My Friends See Who sees the pictures my family shares? | Feelings in Emojis How do I show how I feel without my face? | Cartoons Aren't Cameras How is a drawing different from a photo? | Teaching the Computer How does a computer learn to tell a cat from a dog? |
| 2 | Finding My Happy Mix What makes a 'just right' day with and without screens? | Passwords Are Secret Keys Why do I need a password, and why is it secret? | My Digital Trail What does my footprint look like so far? | Our Class Online Community What rules help us all feel welcome online? | Who Made This? Where did this picture, song, or story come from? | What Can AI Do? What Can't It? What is AI good at, and what do people do better? |
| 3 | Rings of Tech Responsibility Whose feelings do my screen choices affect? | Password Power-Up What makes a strong password strong? | This Is Me — Real and Online How is the 'me' in a profile the same or different from the real me? | Words on a Screen Hit Different Why can a message feel mean even when the person didn't mean it? | Is Seeing Believing? Why do people alter digital photos and videos? | AI Learns from Examples How does an AI get smarter the more you show it? |
| 4 | My Media Choices What makes a media choice healthy for me? | Private, Personal, Public What's the difference between private info, personal info, and public info? | Our Online Tracks How does our online activity affect the digital footprints of ourselves and others? | Keeping Games Fun and Friendly How can I be positive and have fun while playing online games? | How Do I Know It's True? What's one quick way to check a fact online? | AI Has Jobs Everywhere Where is AI hiding in my day? |
| 5 | Finding My Media Balance What does balance look like just for me? | You Won't Believe This! Why do some links try so hard to make me click? | Beyond Gender Stereotypes How do stereotypes shape our experiences online — and how do algorithms reinforce them? | Digital Friendships How do I build and keep a safe online friendship? | Reading News Online What are the parts of a trustworthy news story? | Generative AI: Magic or Math? How does a chatbot come up with its answers? |
| 6 | Balance in a Connected Life How do I balance connection, focus, and rest in a world that's always on? | Don't Feed the Phish How can I spot and stop a phishing attempt? | Who Are You Online? What are the benefits and drawbacks of presenting yourself in different ways online? | Chatting Safely in Shared Spaces How do I chat safely with people I don't know — including AI chatbots? | Finding Credible News & Sources How do I evaluate a source when AI might have written it? | How AI 'Sees' the World How does an AI perceive images, speech, and text? |
| 7 | Attention Is the Product Who profits when I scroll? | Big, Big Data — Including AI Training How do companies (and AI systems) collect and use data about me? | The Power of Digital Footprints How might our digital footprints — now searchable by AI — shape our future? | My Social Media Life How does social media shape my friendships — for better and worse? | Fair Use & AI Remix When I use AI to remix someone else's work, whose work is it? | Machine Learning: Pattern Spotters How does an AI get trained? |
| 8 | Your Brain on Apps How does digital media hook you — and what can you do about it? | Being Aware of What You Share How can I protect my privacy when apps are designed to erode it? | Deepfakes & Digital Self-Defense What happens when someone makes fake content that looks like me? | Sexting, Pressure & the Law What are the real consequences of sharing intimate images? | This Just In (And It Might Be AI) How should I react to breaking news in an AI era? | Algorithmic Bias How can AI be biased — even when no one meant it to be? |
| 9 | My Digital Life Is Like... What is the role of digital media in my life? | The Big Data Dilemma What are the benefits and drawbacks of online tracking? | Protecting Others' Reputations — Including with AI What's my responsibility when AI can generate content about others? | Red Flags in AI-Mediated Relationships How can I tell when a chat — human or bot — is getting risky? | Hoaxes, Fakes & Synthetic Media How can I avoid being fooled — or fooling others? | Representation & Reasoning in AI How do AI systems represent knowledge, and when do they fail? |
| 10 | Social Media and Mental Health How does my social media use affect how I feel — really? | Risk Check for New Tech Should I use this new AI tool? How do I decide? | Curated Lives & AI-Augmented Personas How can I create a social presence that represents the real me — even with AI filters? | Rewarding Relationships — Human and Otherwise What makes a healthy relationship, and where do AI 'relationships' fit? | Challenging Confirmation Bias — in Me and in AI How can I challenge my own biases when AI just confirms them? | How AI Learns — Supervised, Unsupervised, Reinforcement How does an AI actually 'learn'? |
| 11 | Addiction by Design Are we addicted to our devices, and who is responsible? | Data Dignity & AI Training Should my data — my words, face, voice — be used to train AI without my consent? | Who's Looking at Your Footprint? How can my footprint — now scannable by AI — shape my future opportunities? | Code-Switching & AI Coaching How do I adapt my voice for different audiences — and should AI help? | Clicks, Cash & AI Content Farms How does internet advertising — supercharged by AI — spread disinformation? | Natural Interaction — The LLM Era What made conversational AI seem to 'understand' us — and where is the illusion? |
| 12 | The Health Effects of Screens — The Evidence Now What does the research actually say about screens and wellbeing in 2026? | The Privacy Line Where should the line be between public safety and personal privacy? | The Footprint You Want How can I create a digital footprint that matches my purpose? | We Are Civil Communicators How can we communicate with civility when platforms reward outrage? | Filter Bubbles & Epistemic Responsibility How can I take responsibility for knowing what's real in an AI-saturated world? | Societal Impact — The Work Ahead What kind of AI future do I want to help build? |
Filter by grade and strand. Click a card to open the full lesson plan, including objectives, standards, procedures, differentiation, assessment, and an AI-powered adaptation tool.
This curriculum is designed to be flexible and teachable within existing schedules. Below are recommendations for cadence, assessment, professional development, and family engagement.
One 15-30 minute lesson per strand, per year. Six lessons per year per grade. Lessons can be bundled into a 2-week October focus, monthly rotations, or integrated into ELA and advisory periods.
Two annual PD sessions: (1) August kickoff introducing the year's lessons, (2) Mid-year AI-literacy deep dive. Each lesson plan is designed to be self-contained — teachers can pick up any plan and run it with minimal prep.
Each lesson includes a family connection activity. Quarterly parent nights cover key topics (screen-time, privacy, AI, deepfakes). Multilingual handouts for every lesson.
Every lesson includes formative checks. Grade-level portfolio pieces (K, 5, 8, 12) serve as summative benchmarks. No high-stakes testing — this is a dispositions and skills curriculum, not a content-memorization one.
ISTE Standards for Students (2.0), CSTA K-12 CS Standards, AI4K12 Five Big Ideas, California Health Education Framework, CCSS ELA & Math, CASEL SEL Competencies. CIPA and AB 873 compliant.
AI and technology change fast. This curriculum is reviewed annually for the AI strand, biennially for all strands. Teacher feedback drives revisions. A living curriculum, not a frozen one.
Built with AI, for the AI era. The "Adapt This Lesson" feature on every lesson uses Claude AI to help teachers quickly generate differentiated versions — shorter, longer, more ELL support, more challenge, or any custom request. This isn't just a curriculum about AI; it's one that models responsible, teacher-led AI use.