If you’ve taught CS Discoveries, you’re in the right place! AI Discoveries is the next evolution of the CS Discoveries you know - same flexibility, same creative projects, same low barrier of not needing a CS background to teach it - but with AI learning woven throughout.
The headline is a brand-new Unit 1, “Thinking Critically About AI”, where students dig into how real AI systems work, where they fail, and why the choices behind them matter. A few other updates for 2026:
The AI and Machine Learning unit now comes earlier, anchoring AI concepts from the start
A faster, more reliable version of Web Lab in the Web Development unit
An AI Tutor that supports students as they code, without handing over the answer
An embedded AI Teaching Assistant for lesson planning, differentiation, and pacing
A couple of things worth mentioning up front:
CS Discoveries isn’t going anywhere. If you’re not ready to make a change, you can keep teaching CSD exactly as you have been.
This is an intentional, classroom-tested update, not a top-to-bottom reinvention. More new units are coming between now and next spring, with a fuller redesign launching in May 2027. Getting familiar now sets you up for what’s ahead.
A few resources to get started:
Support article: what’s changing and what it means for you → [link]
Most of all, this is your space. What questions do you have about the move to AI Discoveries? What are you curious or unsure about as you think toward fall? Drop a reply below — we’re reading, and other teachers making the same decision will benefit from the conversation.
I use CSD in my ninth grade classroom. I’m concerned that the new AI units are for 6-8 grades. My students haven’t had AI yet, so do I just use this middle school course or is there something similar for high school? Why the change since CSD is up to 10th grade?
I am in the same situation. The chat is not available in my region and I’m finding it difficult to piece out the lessons since so much depends on the chat bot and the student interactions with it.
I’d learn each AI topic just one step deeper than what you need to teach and build one tiny example yourself first, I teach Python/AI and this approach makes the whole thing way less overwhelming
Hi John! At this time, the AI Tutor is only available to students and teachers in the United States. If you are looking to use our AID curriculum, please note that AI Tutor is only required in the “Thinking Critically about AI” unit. You can work in all other units in the course without the AI Tutor.
I am three days into the AI Discoveries course and struggling. There are no exemplars to refer to. In Unit 1 Lesson 3, it is unclear where students are to copy and paste. Where is the Generate and Judge project saved? Are students adding to the Project Guide from Lesson 2? So many questions… In Unit 1 Lesson 3, how do students save their Backpack? When do students do so?
Once the lock settings are open, you want to click where it says Allow Editing. You’ll see the dots next to the students names switch from locked to editable. When finished, you click on Lock again.
I am in the same boat. The is difficult for students. Do they make the guide in the Sketchlab? Or is this just for gathering their content. It seems so clunky for them. We are on Unit 1: Lesson 6 and our sketch isn’t saving into the backpack to have the AI Researcher check it.
My students aren’t able to save their sketch to the backpack either. The page times out. They’ve tried waiting, refreshing, restarting but it’s not helping. This unit doesn’t seem very clear. The outcome is unclear and the directions are confusing throughout. The students do not have a clear understanding of the content.
The struggles continue… I will be starting Unit 1 Lesson 9 today. The “importing” of a backpack is trial and error. Students continue to have issues saving their backpack.
Most importantly, Lesson 8 was a terrible experience for all of my students. Most of them do not know HTML and struggled with Level 1 (I called it Bubble 1). I have one student with HTML experience but even struggled then. Directions were confusing.
I am not sure I can continue with AI Discoveries at this point in time.
I agree. Unit 1 was terrible. The student struggled to understand what they were doing and the SketchLab was super buggy. I ended up giving the students an option to create a slideshow or a report instead. In the end, I don’t care what tool they use to show me what they learned. Students don’t need to save their Guide to the backpack for you to see it, so you can skip that. If I do this curriculum next year, I plan to skip most of Unit 1 and just hit some of the highlights. Overall, I feel like what the students learned in Unit 1 can be learned in just a few class periods. Unit 2 covers some of the same stuff, just from a different angle. Unit 2 is better.
