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Digital Citizenship Week

October 19–23, 2026

In a world filled with AI-generated content, helping our students become independent, critical thinkers has never been more important. Use the free Digital Citizenship Week activities below to help your students build the human, offline-thinking skills they need for a world that's increasingly online. Select your grade band below to see this year's Digital Citizenship Week activities.

Build kids' critical thinking for a world with AI.

Early Elementary Activities

Even the youngest learners need a solid foundation in critical thinking and media literacy, especially as chatbot-like features have begun popping up in places like search engines. Throughout the week, teach the activities below to help your students approach online search results with a thoughtful, critical eye.

A blue animated character with a hat and glasses in hand (named Head) is using a robot with a telescope.
Activity 1 of 3

Using Tech to Learn New Things

Kick off the week with this engaging (and printable!) storybook adventure to help students learn the importance of checking information before they believe it. They'll learn three tips for being smart, critical thinkers as they explore and learn about the world.

An orange background with a set of footprints in the background with a device in the foreground with a search engine with
Activity 2 of 3

How to Search Online

Next, give kids some practice generating questions based on their curiosities. Building on the previous information-seeking activity, model for your class how to use a kid-friendly search tool to find some answers.

A computer laptop opened to a search engine with text that says, "Can penguins Fly?"
Activity 3 of 3

Exploring Search Results

Then, help students explore how search summaries work, recognize different types of search results, and develop some strategies for finding the most useful and accurate information.

Upper Elementary Activities

As kids grow and explore more of the online world, they're wading into a much more complex media landscape with lots of questionable information. Throughout the week, teach the activities below to help your students build a more sophisticated set of media literacy skills that they can apply to any media they encounter.

Media & Our Emotions
Activity 1 of 3

Media & Our Emotions

First up, help students recognize that all of the content they see online—including AI-generated content—is intended to make them feel, think, and act in specific ways. Then explore how this knowledge might change the media choices they make.

SIFT for Sources
Activity 2 of 3

S.I.F.T. for Sources

Next, teach your students the SIFT method: a practical, four-step strategy for separating online "information gold" from "fool's gold." Practice using the strategy to help them develop the critical thinking skills they'll need to confidently discern fact from fiction online.

A student sits at a desk with a desktop computer open to a website.
Activity 3 of 3

Slicing Up Media with P.I.E.

Then, help your students realize that all media (even AI-generated content) is created for a specific purpose: to persuade us to buy something, inform us about a topic, or simply entertain us. Practice using the PIE framework as a tool for understanding any online media.

Middle School Activities

By middle school, most tweens and young teens are exploring, and being targeted with, personalized and algorithmically generated content. Throughout the week, teach the activities below to help your students analyze how algorithms work and develop the critical skills they need to focus their attention on what's actually useful.

What Is Critical Ignoring?
Activity 1 of 3

What Is Critical Ignoring?

To kick off the week, introduce the concept of critical ignoring: a helpful strategy for focusing our attention in an information-filled world. Your students will learn that knowing what information to ignore is just as important as knowing what to pay attention to.

AI Algorithms: How Well Do They Know You?
Activity 2 of 3

AI Algorithms: How Well Do They Know You?

Next, get kids thinking critically about how AI algorithms shape our online experiences. Explore how curated content can sometimes be helpful, but can also come with biases, filter bubbles, and fewer opportunities.

A group of three shadowy figures are looking at a laptop in a green tinted room.
Activity 3 of 3

Telephone Trouble: Mis- & Disinformation

Round out the week with a game of telephone—with a twist! Students will distinguish between mis- and disinformation, analyze the spread of false information, and build strategies for dealing with questionable information online.

High School Activities

By high school, many teens are encountering and using AI in their everyday lives. Throughout the week, teach the activities below to give your students critical skills for finding credible information online, and help them consider the deliberate choices they can make about how and when they use AI.

AI brain made of circuits
Activity 1 of 3

How Does AI Learn?

Start the week by giving your students a mental model for how AI systems actually work. In this activity, students will train their own image recognition model to see how the training data an AI learns from shapes what it can do, and how well it can do it.

a group of teens gathers around a computer
Activity 2 of 3

How to SIFT with AI

Next, have students learn the SIFT method to use AI as a tool that can help them verify a claim. This valuable research skill is more important than ever: knowing how to check if something is actually true, not just if it sounds true.

Old fashioned typewriter with paper saying Artificial Intelligence
Activity 3 of 3

Is AI a Choice or a Necessity?

Rounding out the week, use this activity to help students build a way of thinking about their own choices: not simply whether to use AI or not, but how to make that call deliberately—especially in a world where AI is showing up just about everywhere.

How to Participate In Your Classroom:

  • Select your grade band above to find suggested activities for this year's Digital Citizenship Week. The concepts in each activity build upon one another, and each activity should take about 20 to 40 minutes.
  • Schedule activities on different days, or combine them into one larger lesson on a single day—whatever works best for your classroom. 

Want to extend students' learning? All of the activities above come directly from our K–12 Digital Literacy & Well-Being Curriculum, with over 175 lessons and activities to choose from. Explore the full curriculum to find additional activities that are engaging, relevant for your students!