Jacksonville, FL— As students and educators across the country head back to school, a growing multi-state partnership is helping middle schools prepare students for a world increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence.
AI4MiddleSchools is expanding its work to help educators teach students not simply how to use artificial intelligence, but how AI works, how it affects society, and how they can become informed creators of technology. The initiative brings together universities, education organizations, school districts, and educators to build sustainable AI education pathways for middle school students.
The expansion builds on foundational work supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and industry partners. This year, we bring the AI4MiddleSchools program to new communities in Connecticut, Mississippi, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania while deepening implementation in Georgia, Texas, and Florida.
AI4MiddleSchools provides hands-on learning experiences grounded in AI4K12.org’s “Five Big Ideas in AI” and grade-band guidelines. Students explore fundamental concepts including machine learning, natural language understanding, computer vision, and automated decision-making while examining issues such as bias, ethical design, and the societal impacts of AI.
Preparing Students for the School Year and the Future
The return to school is an important opportunity for educators to help students make sense of the technologies that are rapidly changing their classrooms, communities, and future careers. AI4MiddleSchools is designed to give teachers the knowledge, curriculum, and support they need to bring meaningful AI education into the middle school experience.
AI4MiddleSchools began in 2021 as an NSF ITEST project called “AI for Georgia,” or AI4GA, led by David Touretzky at Carnegie Mellon University, Christina Gardner-McCune at the University of Florida, and Bryan Cox at the Georgia Department of Education, now at the Georgia Institute of Technology. The project initially trained Georgia middle school teachers in the fundamentals of AI and partnered with those educators to co-design and pilot a middle school AI curriculum.
As the program expanded, additional teacher cohorts helped refine and extend the curriculum based on classroom experiences and feedback. Additional industry funding supported expansion to Texas in 2024, in collaboration with WeTeach_CS at the University of Texas at Austin’s Texas Advanced Computing Center, and to Florida in 2025, in collaboration with Northeast Florida Regional STEM2 Hub.
Prior to this year, the program has trained 120 teachers and reached more than 1,700 students across Georgia, Texas, and Florida. Gearing up for this school year, the program trained over 75 educators across 6 states, with more to join later in a fall cohort.
The next phase will expand the partnership’s reach while strengthening the infrastructure needed to make AI education sustainable within schools and districts. Over the next three years, the project is forecast to reach approximately 15,000 students, 1,700 educators, 100–145 teacher leaders, and 100–150 administrators.
The work will include new teacher cohorts, regional training hubs, and an online professional learning platform designed to support teachers, school leaders, and district administrators. Together, these efforts are intended to help schools move beyond isolated AI initiatives and build sustainable, system-wide approaches to AI education.
“In a time where artificial intelligence is disrupting every sector of our economy, it is critical that we are preparing the next generation not just to use these tools, but to create with them,” said Kathleen Schofield, Executive Director of STEM2 Hub. “Students need opportunities to understand how AI works, and to harness its power to co-create solutions to real-world challenges.”
“STEM2 Hub joined the AI4MiddleSchools partnership last summer and has already supported implementation in 42 schools across 17 school districts in Florida,” Schofield added. “With this continued investment, we will be able to deepen our work across Florida while also helping onboard additional states into this collaborative, multi-state partnership.”
“From an industry perspective, the need for a strong, future-ready talent pipeline has never been more urgent,” said David Reichard, Board Chair of STEM2 Hub and a leader at Vaco. “At Vaco, we see firsthand how rapidly the demand for AI and technology skills is growing across every sector. Programs like this are critical to ensuring students are not only aware of these opportunities, but are developing the real-world skills that employers need. This is how we build a sustainable talent pipeline for the future.”
The initiative also creates a bridge between middle school exploration and future high school and career pathways.
As schools begin another academic year, AI4MiddleSchools is working to ensure that students have opportunities to understand one of the most transformative technologies of their generation—and that educators have the support needed to make that learning accessible, meaningful, and sustainable.
For more information about AI4MiddleSchools and partnership opportunities, visit AI4MiddleSchools.org.
About STEM2 Hub
The Northeast Florida Regional STEM2 Hub is a nonprofit organization dedicated to strengthening STEM, computer science, and AI education through educator professional learning, student programs, and district-level systems building. STEM2 Hub partners with schools, districts, universities, industry, and funders to ensure students are prepared for future careers and civic participation in a rapidly evolving technological world.
About Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon is a private, internationally-ranked research university with acclaimed programs spanning the sciences, engineering, technology, business, public policy, humanities and the arts. Its diverse community of scholars, researchers, creators and innovators is driven to make real-world impacts that benefit people across the globe. With an unconventional, interdisciplinary and entrepreneurial approach, Carnegie Mellon does the work that matters.
About University of Florida, Department of Computer & Information Science & Engineering
University of Florida is a major, public, comprehensive, land-grant, research university. The state’s oldest, largest and most comprehensive university, it is among the nation’s most academically diverse public universities. The mission of the UF Department of Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE) is to educate students, as well as the broader campus community, in the fundamental concepts of the computing discipline; to create and disseminate computing knowledge and technology; and to use expertise in computing to help society solve problems.
About Georgia Tech, College of Computing
The Georgia Institute of Technology is one of the nation’s premier research universities providing a focused, technologically based education to more than 25,000 undergraduate and graduate students. Ranked seventh among U.S. News & World Report’s top public universities. Georgia Tech’s College of Computing is a top 10 program in computing education and research. We are a growing, global computing community nearly 50 years in the making. Our goal is nothing less than to change the world – for the better – through computing.
About UT Austin, Texas Advanced Computing Center
The University of Texas at Austin is the top public university in Texas and the flagship of the University of Texas System. The Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) at UT Austin is the leading supercomputing center in the country and home to the U.S. National Science Foundation Leadership-Class Computing Facility (NSF LCCF), which is poised to revolutionize computational research and discovery. TACC delivers world-class and innovative systems, tools, software, and expertise to researchers who seek to make an impact in the world, and advance discovery across disciplines. The WeTeach_CS program is part of TACC’s broader impacts portfolio and one of the largest K-12 professional development programs in the country focused on the computing sciences. WeTeach_CS builds educator and institutional capacity to bring future-ready computing education to every student, addressing a range of sub-disciplines including computer science, AI, integrated computational thinking, cybersecurity, and quantum technologies.