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AI Creature Field Guide

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Grades 6-860-75 minSource: Creative Dad Company

Kids train a simple image-classifying tool to sort fantasy creatures into categories, then hunt for the hidden biases and mistakes baked into their own training data.

Budget levels

Amazon prices checked Oct 9-10, 2026 and may change

Materials links go to Amazon. Prices are estimates and may change. As an Amazon Associate, Creative Dad Company earns from qualifying purchases.

Quick Start

Digital downloads only.

$0 to buy. Printing noted separately.

Student time: one class period, one day.

Teacher prep / build-ahead: separate from student time.

Scale it

The default plan is one class period on a single day.

Scale back: Fit it into a shorter period, use fewer effects, or run a demo instead of a build.

Scale up: Add one extra effect, or spread the share-out across another day.

Ambiance video

Ambiance video coming soon from Creative Dad Studio

  • Printed photo and skeleton cards of modern and fossil organismsPrintinguse what you have
  • colored pencilsBorrow or school hasuse what you have
  • tablet with free classifier toolBorrow or school hasuse what you have

Full Experience

Required materials for the class.

$0 per class (class of about 30, 6 groups).

Student time: one day.

Teacher prep / build-ahead: separate from student time.

Scale it

The default plan is one school day.

Scale back: Fit the build into one period with fewer effects.

Scale up: Spread the work across days, or add more effects.

Total Transformation

The bigger kit, with every optional item included.

$0 per class (class of about 30, 6 groups).

Student time: one day (one session, one-day event).

Teacher prep / build-ahead: separate from student time.

Scale it

The default plan is one session, a one-day event.

Scale back: Shorten the event, or run a demo for a smaller audience.

Scale up: Spread the build and the event across days, or invite a bigger audience.

Choose your version

Every level teaches the same core idea — pick the one that fits your time, budget, and energy today.

Student time: 35 min, one class periodTeacher prep / build-ahead: 15 min$0 to buy. Printing noted separately.One table or a clear section of floorBeginner-friendly

Setup

Print or hand-copy the essential prompt for AI Creature Field Guide, then set out only paper, pencils, and the common or recycled items needed for one test. Use a tabletop representation whenever the original version mentions a room, specialized device, or digital tool; the learning comes from the decisions and evidence, not elaborate scenery.

Activity

  1. Define the central success test in AI Creature Field Guide and make a paper planning sheet for the inputs, actions, and expected result.
  2. Represent the system without electronics by using labeled cards, paper controls, tokens, a ruler, or a student acting as the device; follow the same cause-and-effect rules described in the project.
  3. Run at least three cases, including one difficult or unexpected case, and record input examples, operating rules, predicted outputs, and actual outputs.
  4. Revise one rule, layout, mechanism, or decision after the failed case, repeat it, and explain with the recorded evidence whether the change worked.

Ambiance video

Ambiance video coming soon from Creative Dad Studio

Done when: The group has completed AI Creature Field Guide when it can present a field-guide report explaining the classifier's blind spot and one change that would make it fairer and point to the observation, measurement, comparison, or trial that supports its conclusion.

Materials

printed or drawn creature cards, laptop or tablet, free teachable-machine style app, sticky labels; Printed photo and skeleton cards of modern and fossil organisms; colored pencils; tablet with free classifier tool

Shown for the Quick Start version — switch tabs above to see what changes.

Materials links go to Amazon. Prices are estimates and may change.

As an Amazon Associate, Creative Dad Company earns from qualifying purchases.

Steps

  1. Get a deck of creature cards with outside-view photos AND skeleton diagrams: modern animals (dolphin, shark, bat, bird, human, horse, whale) plus fossils (Pakicetus, Ambulocetus, Archaeopteryx, Eohippus). Predict which creatures are most closely related.
  2. Train a free image classifier (such as Teachable Machine on a tablet) using only the outside-view photos, sorting creatures into 'fish-like', 'bird-like' and 'land animal' groups. Record its sorting results in a table.
  3. Switch to the skeleton diagrams. Color-code matching bones in each limb (upper arm bone, forearm bones, wrist and finger bones) and record in a trait chart which creatures share each bone pattern.
  4. Line up the fossil cards with their modern relatives (for example Pakicetus to Ambulocetus to modern whale) and record which anatomical features change and which stay the same across the series.
  5. Compare the AI's groups to the bone-pattern groups. Circle every case where the AI was fooled by surface looks (for example dolphin sorted with shark) and use the trait chart to explain why shared bones point to shared ancestry.
  6. Build a branching relationship diagram (a simple tree) based only on anatomical evidence, labeling the shared traits at each branch point.
  7. Invent one new fantasy creature for the field guide, draw its skeleton, and use anatomical evidence to argue where it would fit on your tree.

Standards mapped

  • NGSS · MS-LS4-2

    Apply scientific ideas to construct an explanation for the anatomical similarities and differences among modern organisms and between modern and fossil organisms to infer evolutionary relationships.