At the same time, Touretzky cautioned in an interview Monday, the depth of instruction must be grade-level appropriate. Just as the planetary model of the atom, though overgeneralized, is a more useful science lesson for middle schoolers than the Schrödinger equation describing quantum mechanics, so can a tool that applies basic algebra to one artificial neuron give them a hint of how large language models work.
“Don’t just tell them it works like a brain,” he said. “We want to give them some insight — at least a little taste — of how simulated neurons work. What are the things we can explain to people now?”
With that train of thought, Touretzky and two of his students developed the free, open-source “Neuron Sandbox,” a website to show students in grades 6-8 how GenAI operates. He said work began in 2021, and starting this spring Georgia middle schools are planning to incorporate the tool into AI curriculums produced by AI4GA, a joint research project between Carnegie Mellon and the University of Florida. Touretzky said Neuron Sandbox also has more advanced content for high school and undergraduate students, but those have not been proposed to schools yet.
The project was funded by the National Science Foundation’s AI-CARING program, a research group composed of program leader Georgia Tech, as well as Carnegie Mellon, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Oregon State University, and Oregon Health and Science University. Several government, industrial and community partners are also involved.
Touretzky began the project with Carnegie Mellon grad student Neel Pawar, who graduated in 2022. Angela Chen, now a sophomore in Carnegie Mellon’s undergraduate AI program, joined the effort at the start of her freshman year. She helped with Neuron Sandbox’s imagery and interactivity, making it more “kid-friendly.”
“We want to make this very actionable to young students,” Chen said. “Plus, we talked to a lot of teachers who will be using it. From my experience, this [showing middle schoolers how AI works] is a very new thing.”
Touretzky held a boot camp on Neuron Sandbox for Georgia middle school teachers over the summer. During a demonstration of the tool on Monday, he pointed out a 67-page slide deck tutorial for middle school instruction and noted that students can access hints and help functions for every exercise on the site.
The exercises challenge students to complete mathematical functions involving a system of ones and zeros for true and false, simple binary models like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and weighted inputs that produce an output. They demonstrate a mathematical model for a single artificial neuron, also known as a linear threshold unit, which receives weighted inputs and spits out a true or false, yes or no, or on or off.
“Generative AI is having a tremendous impact on society right now,” Touretzky said. “It’s all powered by deep neural networks. What we’re showing them is not the answers, but it’s part of the answers. You’re never going to explain advanced mathematics to middle school kids, but this is a start.”
Editor's Note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly identified AI4GA as a nonprofit agency. It is a joint research project agency between Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Florida.
