Blog
New York teachers use artificial intelligence (AI) to transform STEM education. The New York Academy of Sciences (the Academy) supports this effort.
Posted on May 14, 2025
By Meghan Groome, PhD
Vice-president Director, Education
Since 2012, the New York Academy of Sciences’s scientist (SIR) program (SIR) has twinned STEM professionals with public school teachers in New York to co-do and lead projects based on class survey. Created in partnership with the New York Department of Education, the program provides authentic and practical scientific learning to students from 3rd to 12th year.
For the 2025-2025 school year, SIR serves 50 classrooms in the five arrondissements as well as five classrooms in Elizabeth, New Jersey. The program initiates a diversified range of schools – 80% of title I and covers the disciplines of biology and chemistry to physics and computer science. Teachers and their scientific partners transform the way science is taught and experienced, a classroom at a time.
This year, with the support of Pilot Funding, the Academy launched a new initiative to explore how Genai tools can raise class projects. Thanks to dedicated workshops, expert coaching and a “sandbox” where educators can try new tools, teachers began to integrate AI into their existing projects, not for efficiency, but for improvement. Rather than using AI to automate classification or lesson planning, teachers used it to raise students' commitment and understanding.
AI tools and trends in pilot classrooms
1. Elevation on efficiency
Teachers do not turn to AI to save time – they use it to go further. By integrating AI into a specific teaching to content, educators improve the conceptual understanding of students and critical thinking. A physics class compared the simulations generated by AI to real physical laws, exploring both scientific precision and technological limitations.
2. Word of mouth counts
The adoption of the most effective tools occurs via confidence networks. Our teacher working group acts as a basic recommendation engine. When a tool turns out to be successful in a classroom, it is shared, tested and set up by others.
3. Accessibility and plea
Since many AI tools require approval at school or district, teachers learn to plead for access. They share stories of success and “advice and tricks” to help each other in the approval processes – criticism as federal advice on education and local policies are evolving.
4. Ethics as a first filter
Teachers weigh the tools through ethical lenses – considering intellectual property, biases in training data and environmental impact – often reflecting their students' own concerns. In the academy's secondary school programs, students constantly prioritize ethical considerations in relation to convenience, a trend taken by their teachers.
5. Data analysis is a gateway
Teachers working with large data sets – air quality sensors to robot newspapers – explore data visualization tools compatible with AI as a public table, Powerbi and Google Colab (although the latter is difficult to use in school). Even simple tools like Google Sheets + Explore have an impact.
6. Image analysis widens the possibilities
From the observation of the growth of plants to the study of images of the telescope, teachers are excited by the way in which AI can quantify the required manual observation hours. Tools such as public image analysis platforms of NASA, Qupath and Phyphox transform the way in which visual data support experimentation.
As the scientific program in residence is evolving, it is clear that New York teachers are not only ready for the future of education – they build it. By promoting innovation, collaboration and ethical engagement with AI, they give their students the tools – and inspiration – to become the next generation of scientific leaders.
Learn more about the Academy Scientist in residence program.
Author
Meghan Groome, PHD
Vice-president Director, Education
Meghan Groome is vice-president of the main education at the New York Academy of Sciences where a strategic portfolio of global education programs that primary school through teachers training programs at an early stage. She was the main and co-researcher's researcher on several subsidies from the National Science Foundation.
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