Lectures
Understand the foundations
Discover how AI works, where it is used, and what responsible use looks like. Connect ideas across science, business, the arts, and everyday life.
- AI foundations
- AI across fields
- AI ethics
AIRES Junior · Academics
Start with a question.
Build with purpose.
Explore a question. Build a research-informed AI project with mentors through workshops and CoLab.
Summer 2027 · Mentor-guided
From curiosity to creation.
2027 Theme of the Year
Responsible AI
in Everyday Life
Start with something you notice in your school, community, or daily life. Investigate the need, explore what others have tried, and ask where AI could make a useful difference.
Research comes before the solution. Human judgment stays at the center. Throughout the program, consider fairness, privacy, accessibility, and the impact of what you build.
What could you notice, question, or improve?
Curriculum
One project.
Four ways to learn.
Lectures, workshops, CoLab and activities connect through one research-informed project.
Workshops
Learn by trying
Explore what interests you, plan your project, and learn to develop and communicate an idea.
Research
Find reliable sources, compare existing solutions, and record evidence in your project journal.
Design & Presentation
Explore AI tools for research, coding, user interface design and marketing. Present your decisions and results, then refine them with feedback.
PBL & Product Management
Practice project-based learning: choose useful features and break your idea into manageable steps.
Middle School Counseling
Explore interests and strengths through inquiry, questionnaires and mentor conversations. Reflect on how you work in class and the questions you pursue in CoLab.
CoLab
Make something that matters
Build a research-informed model, demo, or prototype with mentors and peers. Test your ideas, respond to feedback, and explain what your project can and cannot do.
- Build
- Test
- Refine
Activities
Connect and recharge
Get to know your peers, explore different perspectives, and make room for creativity and play.
- Debate night
- Game night
- Arts and crafts
- Sports day
Workshop tasks and project complexity are adapted to students’ experience and progress. AI supports students’ thinking; it does not replace their research, decisions, or original work.
Focus meets practice
How does CoLab work
at AIRES Junior?
Five stages. One meaningful project.
Mentors at every step.
From curiosity to contribution
Not just “What can AI make?”
“What is worth making—and why?”
Choose a domain that genuinely interests you
Robotics, biomedicine, policy, the environment—pick a space where you have a real question and a chance to make everyday life better.
Ask a question worth investigating
Mentors help you narrow a broad interest into a specific, researchable question. Explore existing ideas and evidence before deciding what to build.
Use AI as a responsible research tool
Learn to use AI to accelerate—not replace—your thinking and investigation. Check sources, question outputs, and make your own judgments.
Build, test, and get feedback
Turn research into something concrete: a model, demo, or prototype. Test it, listen to feedback, and refine how it responds to a real need.
Present work you own
Practice explaining the problem, your research and what you created. Use feedback from mentors and peers to refine your presentation, answer questions, and communicate who your project could help and what its limitations are.
The design-thinking flow
Keep asking. Keep testing. Return to an earlier step when you learn something new.
Empathize & Define
Understand people and the need.
Ideate
Explore research-informed ideas.
Prototype
Make an idea tangible.
Test & Refine
Learn from feedback and evidence.
Showcase
Share the work and its possibilities.
Consider fairness, privacy, accessibility, and the impact at every step.
Beyond the summer
What will Junior students take home?
A project they can explain, research habits they can use again, and a more thoughtful way to create with AI.
Made by you. Informed by research.
A Portfolio-Ready Project
A tangible record of an idea developed around a real need—with the research, choices, and testing behind it.
Each student's portfolio includes:
A model, demo, or prototype demonstrating their idea
A project journal documenting research, design decisions, and feedback
A final presentation explaining the problem, proposed solution, and limitations, with practice answering questions and responding to feedback
AI Confidence
Build a beginner’s understanding of machine learning, language models, computer vision, and generative AI—and practice deciding when and how to use them responsibly.
Interdisciplinary Awareness
Recognize how AI connects sustainability, health, robotics, media, and policy. Consider a problem from more than one perspective, including the people affected by a proposed solution.
Transferable Skills
Practice collaboration, critical thinking, ethical reasoning, and clear storytelling. Learn to support ideas with research, respond to feedback, and explain your own design decisions.
Future Pathways
Leave with guidance on continued AI learning, advanced courses, competitions, and potential next steps into AIRES. Each future program has its own eligibility and admissions process.
Sample schedules
Sample AIRES Junior summer schedules
See two weeks of learning, project work and campus life in our UC Berkeley sample schedules.
2026 examples, not confirmed 2027 schedules.
These historical examples show the rhythm of AIRES Junior Summer Residential. Dates, activities, visits, and residential routines vary by campus and session. They are not confirmed 2027 schedules.
UC Berkeley / July 12-19, 2026
Explore, connect, and begin building.
- 08:30–09:00
- Breakfast
- 09:30–10:30
- Lecture
- 10:45–11:45
- Research seminar
- 12:00–12:45
- Lunch
- 13:00–14:00
- Building with AI
- 14:00–14:30
- Icebreakers
- 14:45–16:00
- PBL / product management workshop
- 16:00–17:00
- CoLab
- 17:00–18:00
- Shopping for essentials
- 18:30–19:15
- Dinner
- 20:00–21:00
- Games / recreation
Times are shown in 24-hour format, local to UC Berkeley (Pacific Time).