K-12 Education in the Age of AI: A Call to Action for K-12 AI Literacy

The emergence of increasingly powerful AI technologies calls for the design and development of K-12 AI literacy curricula that can support students who will be entering a profoundly changed labor market. However, developing, implementing, and scaling AI literacy curricula poses significant challenges. It will be essential to develop a robust, evidence-based AI education research foundation that can inform AI literacy curriculum development. Unlike K-12 science and mathematics education, there is not currently a research foundation for K-12 AI education. In this article we provide a component-based definition of AI literacy, present the need for implementing AI literacy education across all grade bands, and argue for the creation of research programs across four areas of AI education: (1) K-12 AI Learning & Technology; (2) K-12 AI Education Integration into STEM, Language Arts, and Social Science Education; (3) K-12 AI Professional Development for Teachers and Administrators; and (4) K-12 AI Assessment.