Building a Novel AI System for Personalized Sustainability Education
UC Irvine researchers have received a $900,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to explore AI-enhanced personalization for large-scale university education in sustainability science.
Imagine you’re one of 300 UC Irvine students in a class titled “ICS5: Global Disruption and Information Technology.” The instructor sends out a video on electric vehicles, one of the main topics for week 2. You’re about to file it away, but a preview shows that part of the video talks about the ocean. This sparks your interest, as someone who grew up near the coastal city of Moss Landing, so you decide to watch. The video not only introduces electric cars but also touches on how microplastics stemming from tires have increased dramatically in fish. You mention this to your roommate, a public policy major also taking the class, only to learn that her video includes a discussion of the psychological issues surrounding individuals replacing cars with sustainable transportation. You end up discussing sustainability together before heading to class the next day.
This scenario is the vision of Informatics Professor Bill Tomlinson of the UCI Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences (ICS). He’s working to make this a reality for his ICS5 course, thanks to a $900,000 grant from the National Science Foundation: “AI-Enhanced Personalization for Large-Scale University Education in Sustainability Science.” His co-principal investigators on the grant — funded through NSF’s Research on Innovative Technologies for Enhanced Learning (RITEL) program — are ICS colleagues Andre van der Hoek and Rebecca Black, along with Julie Ferguson of the Earth System Science Department.
“We’re aiming to use AI to make custom videos for college students learning about sustainability,” says Tomlinson, “matching their learning style and interests in an effort to increase engagement.”
AI-Enhanced Personalization
For more than a decade, Tomlinson has worked to provide a positive pedagogical experience for the hundreds of students in each of his ICS5 course offerings. “It’s challenging, because there are too many students for me to give each one of them personalized attention,” he says. Yet he understands the power of customized learning. “It has been a very different experience teaching my own two kids about sustainability, because I can easily tailor all of our interactions to their specific interests and experiences.”
In an effort to add that personal touch to course materials, Tomlinson has explored the capabilities of large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT and Claude. “I realized that I might be able to use these systems to do a better job of creating experiences for my undergraduates that are personalized to the things that are important to them.”
The NSF project involves developing and evaluating an AI system that can interview students to create a knowledge graph of their interests, goals and experiences. The system then analyzes that knowledge graph, along with one created by the instructor about the course topics, to identify connections and generate personalized educational material at scale. For example, instructors could use the system to make 20 short custom videos for different groups of students, describing how an assigned reading or a course topic relates to what they care about.
“With this novel system,” says Tomlinson, “we envision more effective and equitable learning experiences for undergraduate STEM students.”
Improving Sustainability
As a member of UCI’s Solutions that Scale initiative, Tomlinson is helping to ensure that individuals and global institutions work together on sustainable solutions to address climate change. This requires that people have a solid understanding of the problem. However, when it comes to communicating about climate change, the United Nations has noted that “presenting data alone can numb the audience.” Instead, the UN suggests making the data “relatable, local, and personal,” which is why customized education is crucial when it comes to sustainability.
“Teaching students about sustainability is potentially one of the most powerful interventions,” says Tomlinson. “UCI undergraduates are going to be part of the next generation of world leaders, working in corporations, startups, education, government and many other domains. When they learn about sustainability as students, they can bring these ideas to bear in whatever direction their professional lives take.”
— Shani Murray