AI & Sustainability Education Webinar with Ed3 DAO - Top Takeaways

Last week, we were delighted to be joined by Vriti Saraf of Ed3 DAO for our first webinar exploring AI and sustainability education.

The webinar, co-hosted by Reboot the Future and Ed3 DAO, was inspired by the insights of the Rebooting Education report which found that many teachers want to incorporate sustainability into their lessons more but they lack the time and training, and a heavily exam-focused curriculum means it is not a priority. We wanted to explore how AI can empower our community of educators to integrate the sustainability issues they care about into the classroom.

Around 50% of sign-ups to the webinar hadn’t used AI much or at all. Our pre-event survey found that educators were really struggling to find time to prepare and design sustainability learning, they wanted easier access to more inspiring, quality resources that connect to local issues, and creating engaging, interdisciplinary lessons plans was also a challenge.

Vriti led a lively, interactive discussion which covered:

• A quick introduction to generative AI and how it operates through ‘pattern matching’, with a quiz to test us!

• The importance of recognising and navigating bias in AI outputs.

• Top tips to approaching sustainability education, from tangible first steps to full integration.

• An introduction to the ‘AI toolbox’ with AI tools that can be used at different times and in combination to get the best outputs.

• An introduction to ‘step-prompting’ - an approach to guide AI towards your learning outcomes that align with statutory requirements.

The session concluded with a practical task using Chat GPT by OpenAI and Perplexity.ai along with Reboot the Future’s Classroom Calendar to try out integrating sustainability issues into learning materials, with some great results.

100% attendees came away with a new understanding of AI, and said that they would be using AI after the session to support learning activities such as lesson planning, research and finding resources.

"I used to think that using AI was lazy on my part as an educator, now I think that using AI is a tool and it does not make me lazy, it allows me to be more creative, innovative and dedicate energy in other ways to support students. It was an excellent webinar, very informative, totally engaging... Thank you so much, I'm already looking forward to the next one!"

An important question arose around the role of AI in sustainability education given its huge environmental impact. At this stage, Reboot are providing a space to explore AI’s potential and to discuss these issues in a respectful way, whilst following the latest updates in the space through partners like Ed3 DAO.