AIQ
AIQ
Part of the Deepfakes & Misinfo lesson guide. Teaching a different grade? 🔧 Builder (8–10) · 💻 Hacker (11–14) · ⚡ Architect (15–18)
Before opening the app, play a quick "was that really me?" game. Do a silly, exaggerated impression of a cartoon character or a classroom pet — anything the kids will instantly recognize — and ask: "Did [the character] really say that, or was that just me pretending with my voice?" Kids will laugh and say it was you pretending. Do it once more with a different voice, then say:
"A.I. can make FAKE videos of real people! 🎭 Someone could make it look like your friend said something they never said. Let's learn how to spot what's real!"
Connect it right back to the game: "When I did that silly voice, you KNEW it was pretend, because you could see it was me the whole time. But what if a computer could copy someone's real voice so well that you couldn't tell it was pretend anymore? That's what we're learning about today!"
Open the lesson on the app and read the hook screen together. Point at the four little icons — 🎭 Deepfakes, 📰 Fake News, 🔍 Detection, 🛡️ Defense — and say each word out loud with the class, explaining "deepfake" simply: "a deepfake is a pretend video or pretend voice that a computer made, made to look SO real that it can trick people."
Keep this warm-up to about five minutes. The goal is just to plant one idea before the screen does: pretending isn't new (you just did it with your voice), but a computer can now pretend so well that people can't tell the difference — and that's exactly why we need ways to check.
Some children may ask right away, "Can you show us one?" It's fine to say honestly: "I don't have a real deepfake to show you today, but I can tell you what one would look like — it would look just like a normal video of a real person, except they never actually said or did the thing you're seeing." That honesty models exactly the habit you want them to build: not overclaiming, and being comfortable saying "here's what I do and don't know."
The app walks students through three little scenes. Go through each one together, reading the facts out loud in a warm, curious voice, and pause after each one to connect it back to something the class already understands.
Read the face swap fact together: a computer can put someone's face onto a video of someone else's body, and it can look SO real that it's very hard to tell. Say: "Remember our pretending game? This is like that, but way, way better pretending — done by a computer instead of by me." Read the voice clone fact: a computer can copy someone's voice after hearing just a tiny bit of them talking — as short as 3 seconds! Act surprised: "Just THREE seconds? That's shorter than saying 'good morning'!" Read the real photo fact gently: a real photo is a real picture of something that really happened — but even real photos can trick us if someone only shows part of the picture. Read the AI images fact as a fun "whoa" moment: a computer can even make a picture of a person who was never even born — not a real person at all, just made up by a computer! You might get a question like "so is that person a ghost?" — a fun chance to say, "Nope, not a ghost, just a picture. The computer never made a real person, it only made a PICTURE that looks like one. There's nobody really there at all."
Keep this scene gentle and concrete. Read the fake news fact: a computer can write a whole pretend news story in just seconds, made to look exactly like a real one. Read the megaphone fact as the "good news" contrast: a megaphone makes your REAL voice louder — it's still really you talking, just louder. Read the AI scams fact carefully, since this is the one most likely to matter to a child's own safety: some tricksters use a computer to copy a person's voice — like copying a family member's voice — to try to trick people on the phone. Say plainly: "If you ever get a call that sounds like someone you know asking for something surprising, like money, the safest thing is to tell a grown-up right away, even if the voice sounds just right." You can skip the election example at this age — it's too abstract to land — and spend the extra time on the phone-call example instead, since it's the one this age group can actually act on. If a child says something like "but my mom's voice would sound just like my mom!" — that's exactly the right worry to have, and it's fine to say so: "You're right, it WOULD sound just like her. That's exactly why we can't just trust how a voice sounds anymore — we always check with a grown-up first."
Read each fact and turn it into something concrete. Look Closely: "Sometimes a fake video has weird hands, or blurry edges, or the light looks wrong — like something's just a little off." Detection AI: "Grown-ups also have special computer helpers that look for tiny mistakes we can't even see with our eyes!" Source Check: "One of the best things you can do is ask — is this from someone I trust? Have I seen this somewhere else too?" Critical Thinking: read this one slowly, since it's the single most important idea in the whole lesson for this age group — "The best fake-video detector of all is YOUR OWN BRAIN. Ask yourself: does this seem way too weird or surprising to be true?"
Close by reading the app's own summary together, in simple words: "Deepfakes are fake videos or voices made by A.I. Always check: Is this from someone you trust? Does it seem too weird? Ask a grown-up if you're not sure!" Remind the class they've just earned the "Truth Seeker" 🔍 badge — "You're a Truth Seeker now! That means when something seems weird online, you know exactly what to do: ask!"
Give the whole activity about 8–10 minutes across the three scenes. If a child asks "how does the computer even do that?" the honest, simple answer is: "It watched LOTS and LOTS of real videos and real voices, and it learned how to copy the patterns it saw — kind of like how you got better at drawing a cat by looking at lots of cats." That's enough detail for this age; the "how" gets more detailed in later grades.
A note on running this discussion: keep answers concrete and don't push toward big words like "verify" or "source." "I would ask my mom" or "it looked funny" are exactly the right kind of answers at this age — the goal is building the instinct to pause and ask, not the vocabulary for explaining why. It's worth actually naming a few trusted grown-ups together as a class (parents, teachers, an older sibling, a librarian) so "ask a grown-up" isn't a vague instruction but a real, specific plan a child can picture using.
The app's quiz for this age band has four questions, each with a silly wrong answer or two mixed in — read the choices aloud slowly, since decoding a written multiple-choice question is still a developing skill at this age, and it's fine to let students answer out loud together as a class rather than silently and individually.
Close with: "Today we learned that computers can make really good pretend videos and pretend voices — so good that even grown-ups can get tricked! But you know the secret now: if something seems weird or surprising, ask a grown-up you trust. You're officially a Truth Seeker! 🔍"
Extension activity (10–15 minutes): Play "Real or Pretend?" as a class. Prepare 5–6 short statements ahead of time, mixing true classroom facts ("Our classroom has a red door") with silly made-up ones ("Our teacher can fly"). Read each one out loud in the exact same confident voice and have students vote real or pretend by raising their hands or standing up for "real." After each vote, ask: "How did you decide? What would you do if you weren't sure?" Bring it back to the lesson: "That's exactly what Truth Seekers do online too — when you're not sure, you check, instead of just believing the first thing you hear."
If you have extra time, let a few brave volunteers each say one true thing and one pretend thing about themselves in a normal voice, and have the class guess which is which. This reinforces that even without any special computer trickery, telling real from pretend takes a little checking — and that's a skill worth practicing.
A second, quieter option if the class is tired: hand out paper and have each child draw two small pictures — one of something that really happened to them this week, and one of something silly and made-up. Collect the drawings, mix them up, and read a few descriptions aloud without saying which artist drew which, letting the class guess real or pretend and explain their reasoning. It's the same underlying skill as the main extension — deciding what's real versus made up — in a calmer, seated format that works well right before a transition to another subject.