Kristi Straus

Gaj Sivandran leads a discussion with students on AI in the classroom.

As artificial intelligence quickly reshapes how people interact with the world in various ways, instructors and students are taking a closer look at its role in higher education. Rather than simply teaching students how to use the technology, faculty — led by College of the Environment teaching professors Kristi Straus, Kat Huybers and Gaj Sivandran — are creating space for them to critically examine AI itself. The result is an emerging course curriculum focused on helping students thoughtfully evaluate when AI can support learning, when it can undermine it, and how its use affects individuals, communities and the planet.

“Even if we hope they don’t use it or hope they use it wisely, many students are already using generative AI,” said Huybers, teaching professor of atmospheric and climate science. “Ignoring it won’t make it go away — that just leaves our students to figure it out on their own. This course brings students together to look squarely at the use of generative AI through the lens of a College of the Environment student: What impacts does it have on the environment? On learning? When and how should it be used?”

Clearly, these questions are also on students’ minds; they are not approaching AI technology naively. “It’s all up in the air right now, and hopefully this class will provide a little glimpse of clarity, or at the very least, valuable discussion amongst my peers,” said undergraduate student Bella Vanacore. She sees AI as a tool that is certainly worth discussing, and that it’s important to recognize there’s lots of gray areas.

For undergraduate student Nelson Pham, the course provides an opportunity to engage with peers diving deep into these issues, too. “It allows me to meet with other students who are thinking about the same questions or ideas I am currently grappling with and learn more about the different perspectives,” Pham said. 

A central challenge in the class is not necessarily deciding whether to use AI, but how to use it responsibly. They acknowledge that AI systems can generate inaccurate or misleading information, and that using AI thoughtfully requires being aware of these pitfalls. The course gives students opportunities to practice verifying claims, identifying AI hallucinations and learning how to use AI as a tool rather than a stand-in for critical thinking. Students ultimately take responsibility for the final work they produce.

Invoke

An artificially generated piece of digital art that was awarded the first copyright, which was the seed of a class discussion on what is art and original work in the time of AI.

Active engagement has become a defining characteristic of the course. Students are reading the literature closely, engaging enthusiastically in discussions and completing multiple assignments each week in a two-credit course. The College of the Environment is particularly well positioned to lead these conversations as environmental science already dives deep into complexity, uncertainty and unintended consequences, and requires students to navigate systems and ethical tradeoffs, which are common challenges raised by AI.

Sivandran, a teaching professor in environmental and forest sciences, said the pace of AI use makes these conversations especially urgent. 

“AI is a powerful new tool, but when a new hammer shows up, everything starts to look like a nail,” he said. “This course is giving me the opportunity to better understand how students are actually using AI, and to help build a more complete toolbox — one where the right tool is used thoughtfully and intentionally in the right context.”

Early course data suggests that one of the biggest risks may not be students knowing too little about AI, but believing they understand it better than they actually do. Students who rated their understanding of AI as high were also the least likely to verify its outputs, fact-checking AI responses notably less often than students who approached the technology more cautiously. One of the course’s central goals is to help close that gap by equipping overconfident students with the skills to critically evaluate AI outputs, while giving underconfident students the tools to use AI more effectively.

As AI use expands in higher education across the country, the College of the Environment is committed to leading conversations around the topic centered in critical inquiry and ethics. For students entering careers that will increasingly intersect with and utilize AI, the ability to engage with it thoughtfully will become just as important as learning the technology itself.