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Write Python code and explore AI, robotics, and data analysis in this two-week Dartmouth academy for high school students.
Instructor:
Course Description
AI can produce an answer in seconds. Building something useful with it means knowing what happens to the data, the code, and the computing systems behind the screen. Start with your first lines of Python, then explore what makes an AI tool work.
In this course you will collect, organize, and analyze data using Python, spreadsheets, and data tools such as Pandas, NumPy, and SQL to organize, calculate, and query information. Practice finding patterns and presenting results in charts. Then explore how large language models process language and how AI agents can carry out tasks, experimenting with prompts that help these systems work with text and other unstructured data.
Try natural-language analysis, including how to identify sentiment in text, and visualize what you discover using coding tools such as Matplotlib and Seaborn. Work on projects involving robotics and dedicated AI computing hardware, tour a data center, and learn how to set up your laptop for further computing projects at home. Dartmouth researchers and computing professionals introduce ways people use these skills in research and careers.
No prior programming experience is required. This two-week full-day academy for high school students is part of Dartmouth Precollege Summer Scholars. It connects hands-on data science with questions about how AI is built, what its outputs mean, and where you might take the work next.
What Will You Do?
• Write Python code to organize and analyze data
• Query datasets using spreadsheets, SQL, and Python tools
• Explore language models, AI agents, and useful prompting techniques
• Analyze text and visualize patterns in data
• Work on projects with robotics and dedicated AI computing hardware
• Tour a data center and discuss AI careers with researchers and computing professionals
Learning Outcomes
By the end of the course, students will be able to:
• Explain how data, code, and computing resources support AI systems
• Use Python and data-analysis tools to investigate and communicate patterns
• Evaluate how language models and AI applications respond to information and prompts
You’ll leave with hands-on AI project experience, ideas for further exploration, and a certificate of completion.
Why AI & Data Science Skills Matter
AI systems depend on more than a clever prompt. They rely on data that people collect and organize, code that processes it, and computing resources that make complex tasks possible. Working with Python, spreadsheets, SQL, and data-analysis tools helps students understand how raw information becomes something they can investigate. Text analysis and data visualizations also show why a useful result needs a clear explanation—and why patterns should be examined rather than simply accepted.
Exploring large language models, AI agents, robotics, and dedicated computing hardware makes those connections concrete. Students learn to question assumptions, examine what an AI output actually tells them, and recognize the importance of testing ideas in context. These habits strengthen problem-solving and scientific communication while opening up questions about further study and careers in data science, computer science, engineering, and AI research.
Who Should Attend?
For students who have completed 9th, 10th, 11th, or 12th grade.
If you use AI tools and want to know how they work, or enjoy finding patterns and making things with code, this academy offers a practical starting point. You’ll work with datasets, explore language models, and investigate how software and computing hardware work together. The course also introduces possible directions in AI research and technology careers.
No previous programming experience is required.
Your Summer at Dartmouth
Dartmouth Precollege Summer Scholars gives high school students time to investigate an academic interest in depth in Hanover, New Hampshire. Coursework introduces new questions, challenges students to explain their thinking, and brings together peers with different interests.
The Upper Valley setting and shared summer experience offer opportunities for new friendships and growing independence alongside academic exploration. Students can consider which subjects they want to pursue further while getting a taste of a university community.
After successfully finishing this course, you will be awarded a certification completion for your accomplishment.
*This is a preview, not what you will receive