Summertime! Longer days. Warmer temperatures. Iced tea. Swimming. Kayaking. Vacations. These terms relate to summer in an ideal world.

The general public often adds terms like lounging, sitting poolside, sleeping all morning, and eating bon bons to teachers’ summer agendas; however, the reality of teachers’ summer is far different.

Many teachers use the summer break for professional development, using their own money and time, on both content and pedagogy, often offered by NSTA and other organizations. Science teachers work on advanced degrees, conduct research, and work with universities during the summer months. If, and most likely when, a science teacher is assigned a new subject to teach, they have to prepare for the next year in a matter of weeks. They gather sources, create curriculum maps, look for meaningful learning experiences, and work tirelessly for hours throughout the summer months—quite the opposite of the image of laying poolside.

Science teachers are a dedicated group of individuals who want to ensure their students find their classes meaningful, engaging, and worth their students’ valuable time. How do science teachers accomplish such a mission? The world of teaching science is continually expanding with new technology using virtual reality, interactive computer simulations, and other forms of artificial intelligence. Infusing these high-tech forms of learning exercises requires a foray into a world that did not exist 10-15 years ago. Teachers spend their summers developing a knowledge base of these technologies and how to appropriately infuse them into the classroom.

With the advent of ChatGPT and other AIs, teachers are finding innovative ways to bring these tools into their teaching. For instance, with ChatGPT, students could have it prepare two essays—one pro and one con—about genetic engineering and then analyze what was written for merit, evidence (or lack thereof), and data.

Many educators are so concerned about student plagiarism by using tools like ChatGPT, Bard, and Curiopod, that they are quick to dismiss them. By dismissing these tools, they are missing out on key ways to engage their students. Yes, plagiarism will exist if teachers assign traditional essays, papers, book reports, or other long-used assignments. The advent of these AI tools provides us with the opportunity to evolve our teaching practice to engage all learners in their science learning.

These AI tools are not going away anytime soon. When the Internet entered our world, it was considered a flash in a pan by its critics. Imagine our world today without it. How often do we think of a question during a conversation and immediately reach for our phones to search for an answer? There are as many pros as cons to the internet, but it is here to stay, as are all the AI tools present in our world. It’s time for us to adapt. And, I contend, many science teachers are spending their summer figuring out innovative ways to include AI into their teaching repertoire for the upcoming school year.

Making science engaging for ALL students requires each of us to know our students as learners with individual interests and identities. Through the common components of science teaching, we have Herculean tasks ahead of us to get all 120–180 of our students to buy in to what we are teaching. Using innovative methods is the best way to do so.

Thinking of AI again, let’s use our students’ interests to showcase what they know and are able to do with the science concepts, scientific and engineering practices, and cross-cutting concepts.  For instance, students could use AI to create analogies to determine if the AI-created analogies do in fact make sense, are accurate, and where the limitations of the generated analogies exist. This sort of exercise requires synthesis of the scientific knowledge that showcases our students’ deep understandings.

Students could use ChatGPT (since it is locked in at 2021 for its knowledge base) to look for gaps and biases in what it outputs. ChatGPT-4 is more up-to-date, but biases exist. With any scientific research paper, biases do exist even if science is supposed to be totally objective. Bias is primarily due to the question the scientist poses being based on interest, expertise, and background. All published scientific papers discuss the limitations of their work. Why not ask our students to do the same with what AI produces? Why not help our students understand how biases creep into science in a manner of ways. When underrepresented groups of individuals enter scientific fields, our world view of science expands, is enlightened, and moves into previously unexplored arenas.

Using AI as a tool in our classes allows students and teachers to co-create. When we journey together, deeper meaning is made for all. Creating lab protocols, preparing key points for debates on scientific topics, and linking content with the cross-cutting concepts make for a science class where everyone has a key role to play. Having students write an essay using the written voice of Charles Darwin (with the help of AI) can bring natural selection to life in a way a textbook, handbook, or worksheet could never do.

Citizen science is one key way to engage students in science, and can also use AI. Tracking bird migration, identifying plant species using the app iNaturalist, working with local naturalists in controlling invasive species, and investigating water quality are all ways to involve students in real scientific processes. By making our science classrooms authentic places to engage in doing science, we increase the chance that science will not be seen as something done to them but something that needs their attention in meaningful ways.

Yes, summer is time for all of us to kick back and slow down the rhythms of our lives. Just remember that science teachers don’t take three consecutive months off. They expand their teaching horizons through travel (often to national parks or other natural areas) so as to infuse such experiences into their teaching. They are immersing themselves in what AI will mean to their upcoming year of teaching science. And most importantly, they are continually asking themselves how they can engage ALL students in their science classrooms.