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Code Python projects and apply AI to a social-impact capstone in this 3-week program for middle school students on Yale University’s campus.
Course Description
A chatbot gives an answer. A model spots a pattern. Your student can build the code, then investigate where the prediction goes wrong.
In this course your student will learn Python through guided notebooks, customize a chatbot, analyze real data, and try a decision-tree model predicting heart-disease risk. Natural language processing and computer vision connect code with language and images. Healthcare, sustainability, and assistive technology show possible uses; other examples may include crop-yield prediction, movie recommendations, autonomous vehicles, social robots, or disaster relief.
For a team AI-for-good project, students choose a problem and build an application or prototype. They’ll work with data, test the model, and ask who it helps or misses. Bias, privacy, accessibility, and weak assumptions all matter. Their final presentation explains how the project works, its limits, and the difference it could make for people.
This three-week course for middle school students is part of Summer Discovery’s Institute for the Gifted program on Yale University’s campus in New Haven, Connecticut. The course is available to residential and commuter students.
What You Will Do
• Build Python skills through guided coding notebooks
• Customize a chatbot using natural-language concepts
• Try a decision-tree prediction model with health data
• Explore AI in sustainability and assistive technology
• Check models for bias, privacy, accessibility, and limits
• Develop and present your team’s AI-for-good project
Learning Outcomes
By the end of the course, students will be able to:
• Use Python fundamentals in guided data and AI tasks
• Explain how machine-learning steps lead to predictions and where models can fail
• Use evidence to explain who an AI tool could help and what limits its usefulness
You’ll leave with your coded projects, team capstone presentation and a certificate of completion.
Why Artificial Intelligence Skills Matter
Artificial intelligence is more than a finished app. It depends on data, mathematical patterns, code, testing, and human decisions about what a system should optimize. Building small models helps students see where predictions come from and why accuracy alone may not make a tool fair or useful.
Python practice strengthens logical thinking and debugging, while model evaluation develops evidence-based judgment. Discussing bias, privacy, accessibility, and unintended consequences encourages students to connect technical choices to people. These skills support future exploration in computer science, data science, engineering, health, and responsible technology.
Who Should Attend?
For students who have completed 6th, 7th, or 8th grade.
Students who want to try coding or understand how a prediction is made can connect those interests with problems affecting people. Your student will learn Python through guided work, tackle coding errors, and develop a project with teammates. Explaining what a model cannot do matters alongside getting it to run.
Institute for the Gifted eligibility requirements apply; see the program FAQ.
Recommended by Nearly 9 out of 10 Students
Based on students surveyed in 2026 about Summer Discovery programs at Yale University campus.
Your Summer at Yale University
The program takes place on Yale University’s campus in New Haven, Connecticut.
The setting gives middle-school students a memorable place to learn, have fun, and experience campus life. New Haven’s connections to law, theater, science, and the arts, along with the campus’s courtyards and academic spaces, make exploring a subject feel different from an ordinary school day. The program combines active academics with friendships, campus activities, clear routines, and support as students grow comfortable in a new community. Students can try challenging ideas, meet peers who share their interests, and build age-appropriate independence.
After successfully finishing this course, you will be awarded a certification completion for your accomplishment.
*This is a preview, not what you will receive