Data, bias and digital citizenship to train the female designers of the future
How can we help girls become key players in the artificial intelligence revolution? How can we counter the stereotypes that still influence their study and career choices? And how can we turn AI into an opportunity for inclusion, rather than a force that amplifies inequalities? To answer these questions, a new educational initiative has been launched as part of the Coding Girls & Women programme, based on the webinar Designing with AI: Strategies and tools for personalised learning, available on the Paripasso project’s YouTube channel, and a collection of workshop activities ready to be tried out in the classroom.
Objectives
The programme contributes directly to the objectives of the Coding Girls & Women programme:
- to challenge gender stereotypes linked to technology and STEM subjects
- to highlight biases in data and algorithms that influence opportunities and representation
- to strengthen female students’ self-efficacy, showing that they can understand, use and design technologies
- to promote informed decision-making, free from implicit biases
- to develop the critical and digital skills needed to participate actively in an AI-driven society
This programme helps female students make a fundamental transition: from users of technology to informed participants and designers. When girls understand how data works, how biases arise and how digital systems are designed, their self-perception in relation to STEM changes. No longer “it’s not for me”, but: “I can understand it, I can use it, I can change it”.
How it works
The programme is modular and flexible. Starting with the webinar and the activity sheets, teachers can create engaging activities, adapting them to the pupils’ age and the subjects being taught. The activities range from artificial intelligence to cybersecurity, from algorithmic bias to fact-checking, through games, simulations, experiments and collaborative activities designed to encourage participation, discussion and critical thinking:
- AI and the collective imagination → what stereotypes do we have about technology
- How AI works → data, training, errors
- Bias and representation → who is visible and who isn’t in the data
- Cybersecurity → protecting identities and personal data
- Fake news → recognising and countering disinformation
Classroom activities
Each activity is designed to stimulate discussion, collaboration and critical thinking. The aim is not just to understand technology, but to examine it from a critical and inclusive perspective. The worksheets enable you to:
- simulate the training of an AI system
- discover how data can generate bias
- analyse gender representations in images and content
- recognise digital attacks and develop defence strategies
- expose fake news and manipulated content
Share your class’s experience
Coding Girls & Women is also a community that grows thanks to schools’ experiences. We invite you to try out the programme with your class and tell us how it went. Share photographs of the activities, projects, presentations, prototypes, awareness-raising campaigns, and reflections from your pupils. The most significant experiences will be featured on the Fondazione Mondo Digitale’s channels to build, together, a collection of best practices that can inspire other schools and other girls to view artificial intelligence not merely as a technology to be used, but as a s
