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Daily Screen Contact Audit & Schedule Redesign

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Overview: High schoolers calculate their exact screen accessibility percentages over a 24-hour cycle and write a redesigned schedule that protects sleep quality and reduces daily anxiety.

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Approximate Time: 20 minutes

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Supplies:

• Printed 24-Hour Access Log Worksheets (one per student)
• Calculators

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Teacher Instructions:

• Preliminary Framing (2 mins): Ask:
  
  • Do you know the exact time your eyes meet a screen in the morning and leave a screen at night?
  • What percentage of your waking hours do you spend within reach of an active digital notification?
• Audit & Calculation (10 mins): Students log their daily routine, calculate their total screen-access percentage and highlight their first/last contact timestamps.
• Schedule Redesign (8 mins): On the back of the sheet, students draft a revised 24-hour routine inserting a non-negotiable 60-minute "Screen-Free Wind-Down Window" before bed.
• Follow-up Debrief (5 mins): Ask:
  
  • What is the hardest barrier to enforcing a phone-free bedroom at night, and how can you overcome it?

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Sensory Nature Reset & Data Log

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Overview: Students execute a structured outdoor mindfulness walk, collecting pre- and post-walk quantitative mood data to evaluate nature as an evidence-based stress-regulation tool.

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Approximate Time: 20 - 25 minutes

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Supplies:

• Sensory Nature Walk Reflection Sheet (one per student)
• Pens/pencils

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Teacher Instructions:

• Baseline Assessment (3 mins): Students log baseline metrics on the first page of the Sensory Nature Walk Reflection Sheet

• Silent Sensory Observation (15 mins):  Lead students outside in complete silence. Stop every 4 minutes and ask students to stand or sit quietly while you ask them the following questions. Students should not respond aloud. Rather, they should think quietly about their answers.
  
  • What are five things you see right now?
  • What are four things you hear right now?
  • What are three things that you can feel or touch right now?
  • What are two things you smell right now?
  • What is one thing you taste right now?

• Post-Reset Assessment & Debrief (7 mins): Students log post-walk metrics and calculate net changes. Discuss the “Post Walk Questions” as a class. Ask:
  
  • How does sensory engagement in nature impact your nervous system differently than scrolling on a phone screen?

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The Safety Agreement Briefing

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Overview: Using a jigsaw structure, students first collaborate in role-specific "Job-Alike" expert groups (Tech Developers, Public Health Experts, Consumer Advocates) to evaluate four emerging AI product scenarios. Next, students break into cross-functional panels to negotiate and sign a binding 1-page "Pre-Release Safety Agreement" for an emerging tech product.

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Approximate Time: 35 - 45 minutes

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Supplies:

• Role Descriptions (1 per student)
• Job-Alike Discussion Cards (1-2 per Job-Alike group)
• New Product Description Cards (1-2 per Job-Alike group)
• Pre-Release Safety Agreement Template (1 per Mixed-Job group)
• Pens/pencils
  
  

Teacher Instructions:

• Preliminary Framing (3 mins): Frame the central dilemma from Zak Stein's reflection: Should tech developers have to prove a product is safe before release, or should consumers have to prove it's harmful after it's been made available to the public?
• Ask: "Should tech developers have to prove an AI product is completely safe before releasing it, or should consumers have to prove it's harmful after it's already in millions of hands?"
• Explain the Jigsaw structure: "First, you will meet with other experts in your assigned jobs to build your strategy. Then, you will step into a high-stakes negotiation panel with competing stakeholders."

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Step 1: Job-Alike Groups (15 mins)

• Divide the class into 3 large "Job-Alike" home groups:
  
  1. Tech Developers
  2. Public Health & Youth Experts
  3. Consumer & User Advocates
• Hand out the appropriate Role Descriptions & Job-Alike Discussion Sheets to each group along with the 4 New Product Scenario Descriptions
• Students analyze their professional motivations, discuss the guiding questions, and review all 4 tech items to establish their "non-negotiable" features across every scenario.

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Step 2: Cross-Functional Negotiation Panels (15 mins)

• Re-sort students into mixed-job panels of 3 - 4 students. Each new panel must contain:
  
  • 1 - 2 Tech Developer(s)
  • 1 Public Health Expert
  • 1 Consumer Advocate
• Assign one New Product to each new panel.
• Task: Panels will negotiate and complete a single Pre-Release Safety Agreement for their assigned product.
• Constraint: Students must negotiate concrete trade-offs (e.g., adding sleep locks, turning off default filters, or requiring physical mute switches) rather than just arguing over timeline numbers. All stakeholders must sign the final document to authorize the product launch.

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Step 3: Synthesis & Debrief (5 mins)

Reconvene as a whole class and ask:

1. How did your strategy change when you moved from your comfortable “Job-Alike” group into the mixed negotiation panel?
2. Which stakeholder was forced to make the largest compromise to get the safety agreement signed?
3. If a signed agreement fails and a product still causes harm, who holds ultimate responsibility: the developer, the regulator, or the user?
   

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