C5

Curriculum

Eight lessons. Not another semester course.

Forty-five minutes each. It runs as an advisory unit, a digital citizenship unit, a library or media unit, ELA or STEM enrichment, or a career-readiness module. Low implementation burden is the point — a program a school can’t schedule is a program a school won’t buy.

8lessons 45minutes each 5interactive missions 2assessments (pre and post)
  1. 01

    Meet Your Copilot

    What AI is, and what it is not.

    • Describe what a generative model does and does not do
    • Distinguish a tool from an authority
    • Name the five C5 skills and why the order matters

    Skills

    Curiosity
  2. 02

    Ask Better Questions

    Curiosity — the question is the work.

    • Turn a broad question into a question that can be answered
    • Use follow-up questions to change the quality of an answer
    • Notice a possibility the first question missed

    Skills

    Curiosity
  3. 03

    Say What You Mean

    Clarity — communicating an objective to a system.

    • Communicate objective, context, audience, and constraints
    • Identify what a request left out
    • Adapt instructions when the problem changes

    Skills

    Clarity

    Mission

    The Pizza Party

    Forty students, $250, and four things nobody told you.

  4. 04

    Imagine More

    Creativity — the first answer is not the only answer.

    • Generate genuinely different approaches, not variations
    • Combine a human idea with an AI alternative
    • Work productively inside a hard constraint

    Skills

    Creativity

    Mission

    Mission to Mars

    Ten items. One trip. No resupply for 26 months.

  5. 05

    Don’t Believe Everything

    Critique — plausible is not the same as true.

    • Separate checkable claims from unfalsifiable ones
    • Ask for evidence instead of asking for reassurance
    • Recognize confident wrongness

    Skills

    Critique

    Mission

    Is AI Lying?

    Six claims. Some are wrong. All of them sound right.

  6. 06

    Go One Layer Deeper

    Critique + Curiosity — interrogating a plausible answer.

    • Name the assumption an answer rests on
    • Ask what would have to be true for the answer to be wrong
    • Keep going after the answer already sounds fine

    Skills

    CritiqueCuriosity
  7. 07

    You Decide

    Choice — human judgment comes last.

    • Build criteria before comparing options
    • Identify who bears the cost of each tradeoff
    • Reject a recommendation for a stated reason

    Skills

    Choice

    Mission

    You’re the GM

    The AI says sign Player A. It sounds sure. It usually does.

  8. 08

    The Big Challenge

    All five, on a problem that is actually theirs.

    • Investigate a problem before solving it
    • Use AI across the full loop without deferring to it
    • Present a recommendation you can defend to an adult who disagrees

    Skills

    CuriosityClarityCreativityCritiqueChoice

    Mission

    Save Your Town

    Every fix costs something. Somebody always pays.

Standards

It maps onto what you already teach

C5 is not a new academic subject competing for a period. Every lesson maps to standards a middle school already carries: ELA speaking and listening, argumentative reasoning, research skills, media literacy, digital citizenship, computer science, and career readiness.

A standards crosswalk for your state is part of the pilot packet. Ask for it on the pilot form and we will map it before the first lesson runs.

Request the pilot packet