Leveraging AI to Teach Science
My First Month with ChatGPT
We live in a brave new world. As teachers in the twenty-first century, we face challenges more formidable than at any time in human history. Machines, armed with vast sums of digital knowledge, threaten to supplant what we teach, when we teach it, and whether what we teach will even make a difference.
They call it artificial intelligence or simply, AI.
The new face of AI, the Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer, or ChatGPT, defines artificial intelligence as “the development of computer systems that can perform tasks requiring human-like intelligence, such as learning, problem-solving, and decision-making.”
Our students—digital natives with technology at their fingertips—navigate this world freely.
They can look up homework answers with a mouse click.
They can generate properly formatted essays and reports—with citations—on almost any topic in seconds.
They can solve problems, design experiments, generate conversations, draw art, create music, produce podcasts, and assemble videos in a fraction of the time it once took.
And that’s just the beginning of what AI can do.
Early in my career as a professor in Earth Sciences at a diverse community college, I came across Peter Hurd’s work, addressing what it means to be a science literate person. As summarized by Yore (2001), Hurd defines a science literate person as one who:
distinguishes experts from the uninformed, theory from dogma, data from myth and folklore, science from pseudo-science, evidence from propaganda, facts from fiction, sense from nonsense, and knowledge from opinion.
What if we as science teachers could leverage AI and ChatGPT to achieve this goal?
In June 2023, I decided to experiment with ChatGPT. Its potential as a teaching aid intrigued me, and it has not only met my expectations but far surpassed them.
The most profound aspect of this journey has been the simplicity of learning to work with ChatGPT, the sheer wonder in interacting with it, and the significant boost it has given to my teaching (and writing) productivity.
One of the first tasks I used ChatGPT for was formulating multiple-choice questions for my students. In the past, this was a process that required a significant time investment, as teachers well know. With ChatGPT, this process was made infinitely more manageable. By providing the AI with the concept I wanted to test, it would generate a set of comprehensive and well-structured questions. This saved me countless hours and brought a fresh perspective to my questionnaires, engaging students in ways I hadn’t previously considered.
For example, here’s a prompt I wrote to generate questions on Meltdown, a 2019 documentary produced by The Weather Channel:
Create 25 multiple choice questions about the documentary Meltdown from the Weather Channel Explorers.
Within seconds, ChatGPT created a set of questions on topics covered by the video. But there’s more.
My first prompt should have asked for an answer key. So I asked if it could provide an answer key. I received the list of questions followed by the correct answers, but this time they came without the other answers, the distractors. Doh!
Okay, smarty pants . . .
How about a list of the questions with an asterisk placed in front of the letter for the correct answers?
Voila. That did it.
I now had two versions, one without answers (for students) and one with answers (for me).
Feeling adventurous, I went one step further. I asked for a text file formatted for Respondus, the software used to upload question banks to Canvas, a popular learning management system. It took a couple tweaks (asking for “Type: MC” above each question and asterisks before each answer), but the end result was a set of perfectly formatted questions that I was able to copy and paste into a text editor, save, and upload to my course.
My exploration of ChatGPT didn’t stop at question formulation. It helped me create interactive, collaborative, real-world activities for my students. From setting up hypothetical science scenarios to solve in groups to generating creative prompts for individual assignments, ChatGPT has enabled me to quickly brainstorm ideas. It’s like having an additional educator on the team.
By harnessing the capabilities of ChatGPT, educators can create an immersive and dynamic learning environment that empowers students, stimulates their curiosity, and paves the way for a lifelong passion for scientific exploration.
14. A Conversation about Climate Change and Wildfires
Title: Exploring the Link Between Climate Change and Wildfires in the US West
Objective: The objective of this activity is to engage students in a conversation using ChatGPT to explore differing perspectives on the role of climate change in wildfires. By sharing and discussing their conversations with their peers, students will deepen their understanding of the topic and reflect on the points raised during the exchange.
Instructions:
1. Divide the students into pairs or small groups and assign each group two roles: "Natural Causes Advocate" and "Climate Change Advocate."
2. Instruct each student to use ChatGPT to generate a conversation between the two roles, discussing the role of climate change in wildfires in the US West. Each student should play one role at a time and alternate between being the "Natural Causes Advocate" and the "Climate Change Advocate."
3. Encourage students to explore the perspectives and arguments of both roles thoroughly. They should consider factors such as historical wildfire patterns, forest management practices, climate data, and scientific research while engaging in the conversation.
4. Instruct students to save the generated conversations and prepare to share them with their peers.
5. Create a sharing session where students take turns reading their conversations aloud to the class or within their small groups. Alternatively, students can exchange their conversation transcripts electronically.
18. Exploring Ocean Technology
Title: Exploring the Ocean with Robotics
Objective: Gain knowledge about ocean technology, including remotely operated vehicles (ROVs), autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), and ocean observatories.
Instructions:
1. Divide students into small groups.
2. Assign each group a specific ocean technology topic: ROVs, AUVs, or ocean observatories.
3. Instruct each group to research and gather information about their assigned topic, including its purpose, components, applications, and importance in ocean exploration.
4. Once the research is complete, each group should prepare a set of questions related to their topic to ask the ChatGPT.
5. Rotate the groups, allowing each group to engage in a conversation with the ChatGPT by asking their prepared questions and exploring further based on the responses.
ChatGPT reminds me of conversing with a respected colleague, always ready with a suggestion, fact, or solution. You pose a problem, and ChatGPT helps you find an answer. Sure, it can’t offer you a bite of its sandwich or share an opinion on the Titan submersible disaster (its knowledge base extends only until September 2021). But it can put actionable information in your hands faster than any other available tool. It’s mind-blowing.
But perhaps the most profound transformation lies not in the what or how but in the why. ChatGPT has allowed me to reconnect with why I chose to teach—to inspire a love for science in my students. By reducing time spent on ancillary tasks, I’ve been able to focus more on creating meaningful and engaging learning experiences.
ChatGPT isn’t just a tool—it’s a game-changer. It’s helped reinvent what I teach, revolutionize how I teach, and rekindle why I teach. As I look forward to continuing this journey, I’m excited about the endless possibilities that ChatGPT holds for education.
As teachers, we constantly seek new ways to engage our students, foster critical thinking, and enhance their understanding of complex scientific concepts. If my first month with ChatGPT is any indication, the future of teaching looks incredibly promising.
I invite my fellow educators to explore this remarkable frontier in teaching technology.