Toolkit for the Interdisciplinary Infusion of the SDGs into Classrooms
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AI Resources

AI resources and tools that instructors can use to plan, deliver, and share with students. 

Guidelines for Gen AI

General AI Resources

  • AI for Good Simulator by Microsoft  is a simulation platform allows students to model complex scenarios and predict the impacts of various interventions related to the SDGs, such as poverty, health, and sustainability.
  • Assessment Partner from McMaster University and the MacPherson Institute. This is a proof of concept application that employs Gen AI and a multi-agent approach to craft assessments aligned with teaching objectives. Designed with educational best practices in mind, the interface streamlines the development of unique, outcome-focused assessments. It provides educators with a powerful tool to enhance learning engagement and achievement.
  • Cult of Pedagogy by Jennifer Gonzalez who created “a vibrant, encouraging, stimulating community of teachers, supporting each other toward excellence”. Watch The Teacher’s Guide to Tech 2024.
  • DeepMind though primarily a research entity, the AI tools and methodologies developed here can be studied and potentially applied by students to address energy efficiency (SDG 7, Affordable and Clean Energy) or health issues (SDG 3).
  • Earth Engine by Google is a tool for environmental monitoring and analysis. Students can use it to analyze large datasets related to earth’s surface, which is beneficial for SDGs focused on climate action, life below water, and life on land.
  • Google AI for Social Good aims to help address some of the world’s biggest challenges. They provide tools and funding for projects that create positive impacts, which can be incorporated into educational content.
  • MagicSchool can help educators to lesson plan, differentiate, write assessments, write IEPs, communicate clearly and build AI literacy.
  • Microsoft AI School provides free learning materials and programming tools for AI education. Although not a tool in itself, it enables the learning and application of AI in projects targeting diverse SDGs. Relevant SDGs: SDG 4 (Quality Education), along with others depending on the application developed through learning.
  • Microsoft Immersive Reader helps to streamline content on webpages to help people focus and absorb information online. People can remove distractions and modify pages to fit their reading preferences.
  • View the Robot Tool from Harvard University Library. Designed to help people when reading about AI applications to help consider the legitimacy of the technology.
  • Read The Role of Artificial Intelligence in Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals by R. Vinuesa, H. Azizpour, I. Leite, M. Balaam, V. Dignum, S. Domisch, A. Felländer, S.D. Langhans, M. Tegmark & F. Fuso Nerini in Nature 2020.
  • SMARTIE is the Strategic Module Assistant for Rubrics, Tasks, and Inclusive Education. It is developed to assist university-level educators in creating comprehensive and inclusive course outlines. The tool allows educators to generate various course components such as descriptions, learning outcomes, corresponding EDIA-aware learning activities, and recommendations for rubric redesigns.

Presentations and Content Creation

  • Canva can provide assistance with creating presentations, videos, content posts, infographics, newsletters and more.
  • Gamma can help create and share content and presentations with no coding skills required.
  • Inkscape is a free and open source vector graphics editor for GNU/Linux, Windows and macOS. It offers a rich set of features and is widely used for both artistic and technical illustrations such as cartoons, clip art, logos, typography, diagramming and flowcharting. 
  • Sendsteps can help generate interactive presentations with real-time feedback.
  • Slidesgo has free templates for Google Slides, Canva and PowerPoint to help everyone create engaging presentations.
  • Vizard helps teachers use AI to turn long-form videos into short clips and helps teachers to quickly create a transcript and/or subtitles to accompany video so that students can experience domain-specific vocabulary.
  • Zoho can help with creating spreadsheets teams can easily collaborate on for free.

Inclusive Design and AI

  • Google Docs Voice Typing allows people to use their voice to type and edit documents.
  • Ludia = UDL + AI Designed by Beth Stark and Jérémie Rostan. Ludia is an AI-powered UDL partner, can help you reduce learning barriers and discover ways to support all learners.
  • Read the Framework for Accessible and Equitable Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Education and in French. The framework is from the Inclusive Design and Research Centre at OCAD.
  • TPGI is a free colour contrast checker to optimize content that includes text and visual elements for individuals with color-blindness or low vision impairments.
  • Visit UDLPal a guide to inclusive and accessible learning. Whether you’re an educator, student, or advocate, UDLPal offers personalized support and resources. Designed by Afsaneh Sharif and Lucas Wright from the University of British Columbia.

Writing and Research

  • AudioPen converts voice notes into text that’s easy to read and ready to share. Create meeting notes, memos, emails, articles and more, all you have to do is talk.
  • Mural is a virtual collaborative whiteboard tool. While the pen and drawing tools are rudimentary, Mural really shines as a mind-mapping tool with virtual sticky notes.
  • NodeLand transforms note-taking into mind-mapping and can be used as a knowledge management tool. It assists in visual thinking and showing how ideas connect.
  • Padlet is an online multimedia collaborative bulletin board. Users can add a range of media types, such as text, images, media, audio, concept maps, documents, and URLs. Everyone can easily contribute to a shared Padlet from their own device (computer, tablet, phone).
  • Perusall is a social annotation tool that allows students, instructors, and TAs to markup readings (e.g., documents) or videos collaboratively. It brings class discussion directly into the learning artifacts.
  • PollEverywhere is a web-based polling tool. It allows instructors to ask questions quickly and for students to respond to the questions using their computer or mobile device. Instructors can ask a variety of question types, including multiple choice, clickable images, open ended, and others.
  • Visit the University of Calgary’s Research Guide on Artificial Intelligence. The guide includes Fine Tuning Prompts and Resources for Instructors.
  • Quillbot can provide assistance with writing tools, language correction, citations and more.
  • ResearchRabbit is a tool that helps researchers (i.e., faculty, students, and staff) find relevant papers and stay updated with the latest research. It allows users to create collections of papers, similar to playlists in Spotify, and learns from their preferences to provide personalized recommendations. Its key feature is a citation-based literature mapping tool to visualize the connections between papers and discover author networks. 
  • Tavily AI is a search engine optimized for LLMs and RAG, aimed at efficient, quick, and persistent search results.
  • Xmind is a brainstorming and visualizing tool that can be used to generate visual diagrams and mind maps.

Discipline-Specific AI Resources

Arts, Performance, Media & Design

  • Read about AI Art Tools from the University of Calgary research guide.
  • DALL-E generates unique artwork based on textual descriptions.

Education and ESL

  • Read Artificial intelligence and English language teaching: A systematic literature review by the British Council and authors Dr. Helen Crompton, Dr. Adam Edmett, Neenaz Ichaporia, 2023.
  • Curipod enables teachers to create interactive lessons. Students can explore various topics, and the AI functionality helps generate customized lessons tailored to learning needs. Instructors can type in a topic, and a ready-to-run lesson is generated with text, images, and activities such as polls, open-ended responses, and word clouds.
  • Kahoot is a web-based tool that allows for the creation of question-based learning games that can be created by either instructors or students.

Environmental & Urban Change and Geography

  • AI for Climate is a global initiative that leverages AI technologies to address climate change and to foster the transition to renewable energy, consistent with SDG 13 and SDG 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy).
  • BreezoMeter provides real-time air quality data using AI algorithms, supporting SDG 3 (Good Health and Well-being) and SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities) by enabling better environmental health monitoring.
  • Global Forest Watch offers data and tools to monitor forest conditions in real time using AI and satellite imagery, supporting SDG 15 (Life on Land) by aiding in forest conservation and reduced deforestation.
  • Gringgo.co uses AI to enhance waste collection and recycling by optimizing routes and identifying the types of recyclables collected, contributing to smarter waste management.
  • OceanMind uses AI to help enforce regulations to combat illegal fishing, supporting SDG 14 (Life Below Water).
  • Pachama  uses machine learning to verify carbon capture and monitor reforestation projects, which aligns with SDG 13 (Climate Action) and SDG 15 (Life on Land)
  • PlantVillage Nuru is a tool uses machine learning models on a smartphone app to diagnose plant diseases in crops, helping farmers avoid significant yield losses and supporting SDG 2 (Zero Hunger).
  • Rainforest Connection uses AI to analyze audio data captured in rainforests to prevent illegal logging and poaching, directly contributing to SDG 15 as well.
  • The Ocean Cleanup  uses AI to optimize clean-up systems to remove plastics from the oceans, directly supporting the achievement of SDG 14 (Life Below Water)
  • Wildme is an AI tool for wildlife research that uses data science for conservation purposes, aligning with SDG 15 (Life on Land). It relies on pattern recognition and machine learning to track animal populations.

Law

Math and Statistics

  • DataRobot is an enterprise AI platform which can be used to harness predictive analytics for a variety of SDG-related projects, such as assessing and predicting economic growth or health outcomes across populations. Example from their Resource Library of Anacostia Riverkeeper Uses DataRobot to Predict Water Quality in the Anacostia River
  • Gapminder Tools offers a suite of data visualization tools that help debunk common misconceptions about global development. It includes resources and quizzes that make learning about world trends and SDG-related topics engaging and interactive. Visualizing development data, engaging students with interactive quizzes and discussions.
  • Seaborn is a Python data visualization library. It provides a high-level interface for drawing attractive and informative statistical graphics.
  • TensorFlow is an open-source software library for numerical computation using data flow graphs, widely used in machine learning and deep learning applications. Applicable across various SDGs depending on the specific projects, such as SDG 2 (Zero Hunger) through agricultural data prediction models, or SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production) through waste sorting and reduction models.
  • Zindi is a data science competition platform based in Africa that hosts challenges aimed at solving Africa’s most pressing problems, including those related to various SDGs. It’s an excellent way for students to apply their skills in real-world scenarios.

Sciences

  • Kaggle is a platform for data science competitions, Kaggle can be used in an educational setting to encourage students to solve real-world issues aligned with the SDGs using AI and machine learning. Description: Offers free access to computational environments (Kernels), along with a vast library of datasets and competitions. Students can engage in SDG-related projects by participating in competitions aimed at solving real-world issues.Relevant SDGs: Various depending on the competition theme.
  • OceanMind uses AI to help enforce regulations to combat illegal fishing, supporting SDG 14 (Life Below Water).

Social Work

Trades & Technology

  • Read What is Deep Learning by IBM. The article includes information related to models, use cases, industry applications and resources.
  • Read What is Computer Vision by IBM. The article includes history, research, examples and applications.
  • Matplotlib is a comprehensive library for creating static, animated, and interactive visualizations in Python.
  • NumPy is a free open-source project that enables numerical computing with Python.
  • Pandas is an open-source data analysis and manipulation tool.
  • Plotly is free and open-source. It is a graphing library that makes interactive, publication-quality graphs. There are examples of how to make line plots, scatter plots, area charts, bar charts, error bars, box plots, histograms, heatmaps, subplots, multiple-axes, polar charts, and bubble charts.
  • Seaborn is a Python data visualization library. It provides a high-level interface for drawing attractive and informative statistical graphics.