A Complete Guide to Creating an AI Club: How to Create an Artificial Intelligence Club at Your High School
Are you interested in creating a club at your school? Artificial intelligence (AI) is a fascinating and popular topic around which to create a club. In this blog post, we are sharing the many benefits of running an AI club and how to get started with creating a club at your school!
What is an Artificial Intelligence Club?
An AI club is a group of students that meet and focus on artificial intelligence-inspired activities. Artificial intelligence is a type of intelligence that is similar to natural intelligence, like human intelligence, that is demonstrated by a computer-based program. AI club activities can include things like building AI models, researching current AI models or controversial topics, or even discussing and reviewing current AI literature.
The mission of an AI Club is up to its president and founding members! Typical goals range from competing in competitions to spreading awareness about AI to others.
Why Start an Artificial Intelligence Club?
Creating an AI club can help inspire students to become more interested in AI, help you display and improve your own skills in coding and leadership, and help you stand out on college applications, among other advantages! Below, we go into detail about just a few of the various ways an AI club can augment both your school and your own personal life.
Inspire Students’ Interest in AI
Having a club about AI at your school can bring awareness to students about how AI works and the potential pitfalls of AI. Your club can act as a resource for others to learn about hot topics in AI: how does ChatGPT work?; are GPT models ethical?; what does the growth of AI mean for job security?; and more! Through your club, some people may even discover that they really enjoy data science or artificial intelligence, and they may even decide to major in one of the topics! Even if they aren’t going to continue to pursue data science or artificial intelligence in the future, artificial intelligence can be an interdisciplinary pursuit and learning data analysis skills may help students with whatever they pursue in the future.
Develop and Exhibit Skills
Through running an AI Club, you’ll be able to grow your own knowledge base about AI and machine learning as well as your own communication and leadership skills. To successfully explain how a computer is able to “learn,” how to measure learning accuracy, and how to determine which type of models to use for a problem, you’ll have to delve into the depths of researching the topics yourself. Having to digest jargon-filled articles and research papers can help you develop valuable reading analysis skills as well as general researching skills. If you decide to lead a group project to build an AI model, you’ll likely have to learn a whole new library of methods and functions specifically used for AI models and data filtration. You’ll also get to demonstrate organization and leadership skills in successfully forming a club and schedule meetings and events!
Boost College Applications
Leading an AI Club can also help you stand out amongst other exemplary students on college applications. It can help reveal your dedication to a passion as well as your ability to organize larger groups as well. Moreover, it demonstrates your ability to successfully manage your time between managing club activities and other extracurriculars. You might even be able to write about a defining club activity in a college application essay!
Examples of Artificial Intelligence Club Activities
After learning about why you should make an AI club, you might be wondering what kinds of activities an AI club could actually revolve around. Since AI is such a broad topic, here are some common examples of activities that you can include in your future club.
Inviting Guest Speakers
One way to attract a lot of interest in your club is inviting knowledgeable guest speakers like local professors to talk at your school. Many students look forward to hearing about how professionals arrived at their occupation and being able to ask them about their own academic journey, especially since college applications are a large part of the high school experience in the later years of high school. Inviting a guest speaker can also allow students to better understand a real life application of AI that they might not have considered before. Here’s how you can get in touch with and maybe invite a guest speaker to your school:
Research local research laboratory or local college/university outreach programs. Some laboratories have specific K-12 education outreach programs, and they might be able to find a researcher to help you!
If you can’t find an outreach program, try emailing professors or researchers in your local area. There may be someone who is willing to help your club!
Be polite! Professors and researchers have busy schedules, and they are taking time out of their life to speak at your school. Make sure you remember to be respectful and understanding of their busy schedules.
Building Group Projects
Another fun and educational opportunity for an AI Club is working on group projects. Group projects can develop teamwork skills and build unity as a club. Working on projects also helps create concrete goals for your club to work towards and can be a great learning experience for everyone involved. If it would not be possible for everyone to have access to a computer to work on a coding project, there are always ways you could do a physical project that involves arts-and-crafts instead. Here are a few examples of group projects for an AI Club:
Building a fake news detection model using natural language processing
Making posters about artificial intelligence topics
Creating a club proposal about how your school should use ChatGPT
Collaborating on Events with Other Groups
Yet another activity you could organize for an AI club is a joint event with other clubs in your school. This can help spread awareness of your club and also help students learn about the interdisciplinary potential of data analysis and AI. It can also be an exciting school-wide event that strengthens the school community. Some examples of ways that you can collaborate with other clubs are detailed below:
Partner with sports clubs to predict wins and losses for a sports season
Reach out to clubs that help immigrants and create presentations about using AI to detect anti-immigrant sentiments online
Working with art clubs to discuss and create AI-generated art
How to Start Your Own Artificial Intelligence Club
Every school has a different policy towards creating clubs. It’s crucial to review what your school requires for starting a new club—this can include finding a minimum number of members or finding a teacher supervisor for your club.
To attract attention to your club, it would be a good idea to make sure that meetings are informational and fun. This can include preparing presentations or guided projects beforehand or adding fun activities into your meetings, such as jeopardy but with AI and machine learning vocabulary terms.
Creating an AI club at your school offers you a unique leadership opportunity, a chance to delve further into your interests, and meet new people.
About Inspirit AI
AI Scholars Live Online is a 10 session (25-hour) program that exposes high school students to fundamental AI concepts and guides them to build a socially impactful project. Taught by our team of graduate students from Stanford, MIT, and more, students receive a personalized learning experience in small groups with a student-teacher ratio of 5:1.
