Crest Program Teaches Students about AI Ethics

Mercer Island, WA, January 14, 2025 - Around two years ago when ChatGPT, the generative artificial intelligence model chatbot, became available for public use, conversation in the education sphere focused on how students would inevitably use the technology to write their essays for them and do their homework. AI became a boogeyman for academic dishonesty and cheating. As AI continues to develop at breakneck speed, teachers at Crest Learning Center, an alternative learning program at Mercer Island High School, wondered how they could embrace AI. 

Teachers Carrie Thompson and Patrick Rigby developed a Project Based Learning (PBL) program on the ethical use of AI for their high school students. The point of the project was for students to study and learn about AI while testing out its tools and capabilities. In doing so, Thompson and Rigby want students to consider the ethics around using this technology. 

“We need to build understanding on the part of the students of what's really impacted when they take the tantalizing shortcuts rather than engage and embrace the hard work,” Thompson said. 

By teaching them about AI and how to use it as a tool rather than a crutch, Thompson and Rigby believe students will use the tools differently. 

“I have a feeling students will identify that using AI to write an essay doesn’t actually teach them much. I also think they will think it’s fine to use AI to write an email from time to time,” Rigby said. “How they navigate what’s appropriate in that space is the question we’re all trying to figure out right now, from schools to longshoremen.”

To help facilitate the AI project, which was originally inspired by an educator named Betsy Potash, both teachers attended October’s AI Summit in Spokane where they networked with experts in the field and other teachers. The summit enabled Thompson and Rigby to “create a resource list for students” and “helped build their own understanding of how AI is impacting educational practices.”

In class, Thompson and Rigby taught students about the different tools and had them test them out. Now, the students are working in small groups to answer the questions they have about AI and its ethics. 

Some groups are researching deep fakes, realistic-looking fabricated images, and student privacy. They’re considering writing a letter to the Washington State Legislature about potential legislation. One group is focused on AI translators and their accuracy. Other groups are concerned about the cross-section of art and AI. A different group wants to create an AI course for high school students. 

“We really liked this project because it checks all the boxes,” Thompson said. “It's real, it's permanent. It's relevant to them. It requires them to wrestle with a really big question, and gives them a public product.”

By the end of the project, as part of the PBL program, students will present their findings in a public avenue, be that at a school board meeting or in a gathering of their peers. 

Sophomore Ali’i Reek, 16, is an artist who loves to draw. She wants to be an animator one day and worries about how AI could impact that. 

“I feel like there could be an ethical way to use AI and an ethical way that should be taught,” Reek said. Their group, which contains other student artists and musicians, is concerned about AI art in schools as well as AI art and copyright issues. They’ve emailed art teachers and the National Art Education Association for guidance on the subject. 

“Giving students the opportunity to explore these questions for themselves sets them up for a stronger sense of who they are and what they should do in the future,” Rigby said. 

Junior Hayden Bond, 17, wants schools to teach AI as a research tool. 

“We've been using [AI] this way and we've noticed how useful that is,” Bond said. “Our end goal is to be able to have maybe a day of the week, or a few days out of the month, where teachers will teach their students how to use certain AI tools as a research tool or a studying tool that they can use when just going throughout their school life.”

Bond’s father works in cancer research and uses AI technology for his work. Bond wants those tools to be available to everyone, not just big companies. 

“I want to be able to take it and teach more people how to use it,” Bond said. “Because if more people can use AI for research, the speed that we will be able to start finding things and discovering more—because the speed that we already are discovering more because of AI is just insane—it'll be very useful for the new generations.”

Thompson and Rigby believe students are more engaged with these projects because they’re real world, tangible issues. 

“As a society, we don’t really have strong guidelines about where and when AI should be doing work yet,” Rigby said. “Giving students the opportunity to explore these questions for themselves sets them up for a stronger sense of who they are and what they should do in the future.”

Nathalie Graham is a freelance writer based in Seattle. She regularly works with the Seattle Times, GeekWire, and The Stranger. She will be highlighting MISD students, schools, and staff during the 2024-2025 school year. You can read more of her writing here. Read Nathalie's story on Lakeridge fourth grade teacher Amber Bobst teaching her students about the Electoral College.