Empowering AI competences in children: A training program based on simple playful activities

Empowerment of AI competences (EmpAI) is a project based on the assumption that it is possible to identify basic human abilities that, once trained, may foster understanding of AI concepts and applications in children as young as fifth and sixth-graders. Main efforts have been made to design educational activities to teach children computer programming; there is now a need for research both to identify those competencies that should be included in a definition of AI literacy and to design educational experiences that foster AI literacy. We present a training program designed to enhance some abilities present in fifth and sixth-grade children and the planned experimental validation to verify its efficacy in fostering AI literacy.