Who gets to imagine the future, and who is recognised as belonging in it? These questions shape Imagined Futures, a learning unit I designed as a Scientix ambassador for the English classes in my school and gathered on a website for our students: imagined-futures.lovable.app. The unit uses Isaac Asimov’s robot fiction as a starting point for conversations about technology, ethics, science and the responsible use of artificial intelligence, all conducted in English.
Technology as something to question
My aim was simple: I wanted students to encounter technology as something they can question, interpret and discuss, not just use. Literature is a powerful way in, because stories let us test ideas about machines and people before real decisions have to be made.
The unit connects Asimov, visual analysis, slow looking, women in science, public debate and cultural reporting in a purposeful sequence, so that each activity prepares the next.
Who belongs in science?
One strand of the unit focuses on Susan Calvin and women in science. Students look at Asimov’s robopsychologist alongside real scientists such as Katherine Johnson, and compare how women in science are represented. This invites attention to gender stereotypes, to scientific identities and to the question of who is recognised as belonging in science. For many students, it is a first chance to examine those assumptions openly.
Reason and evidence
Another strand, Reason and Evidence, asks students to distinguish between facts, interpretations, beliefs and unsupported claims. The evidence they work with is literary rather than experimental, so not a scientific investigation. Even so, the habit of asking „how do we know?” and „what supports this claim?” is closely related to scientific literacy, and English lessons are a natural place to practise it.
The Three Laws in public debate
Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics give students a rich case for exploring safety, conflicting instructions and unexpected outcomes. What happens when rules that sound sensible collide? Who is responsible when a system behaves in a way nobody intended? These questions open onto real challenges in designing responsible systems.
To bring them to life, students take part in a stakeholder press conference, speaking as roboticists, employees, parents and companies. Each role has different priorities, and students discover that technological decisions affect people in different ways and often involve competing interests. They have to argue, listen and respond in English, which makes the language practice purposeful and the ethical thinking visible.
Using AI with judgement
The unit also builds critical digital literacy through structured AI use. Students do not simply accept what an AI tool offers. They check its suggestions and record one accepted and one rejected suggestion, explaining their reasoning. This requirement to evaluate AI feedback makes their judgement visible, and it reminds them that using a tool well is a skill that involves decisions.
What the unit shows
Imagined Futures makes a strong case for STEM-related educational practice, particularly through technology ethics, representation in science and critical AI literacy. It is an innovative CLIL unit contributing to STEM literacy through literature, technological ethics and critical AI use developed by an enthusiastic Scientix ambassador. Its innovation lies less in any single activity than in the teaching design: a coherent path that connects reading, looking, debating and reflecting.
A clear recognition about its limits: the evidence students work with is mainly literary, and the unit is not a substitute for hands-on scientific or technological investigation. That is why I see it as one contribution to STEM literacy, and why I would welcome collaboration with colleagues from science and technology subjects, Scientix ambassadors and aspiring Scientix ambassadors, as well as newcomers to the world of STEM, to take it further. If you, the reader, are exploring similar ideas, I would be glad to hear from you.