GENERATIVE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN THE TEACHING OF BIOLOGY: CREATING PHOTOREALISTIC IMAGES OF INSECTS OBSERVATIONS OF WATER ANIMALS IN SCHOOL AQUARIUM XXIII: AMERICAN TADPOLE SHRIMP (TRIOPS LONGICAUDATUS)
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is gradually changing the nature of education and offering new opportunities to support the teaching of natural sciences more effectively. In this paper, we focus on the use of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) in the creation of photorealistic images of insects, which can serve as an innovative didactic tool in the teaching of biology. Although insects represent a significant share of global animal diversity and play key roles in ecosystems, teaching this topic is often challenging and may be unattractive for teachers and students. As part of the study, we generated a set of images of ten representatives of insects, focusing on the quality of the outputs and identifying the most common errors created by artificial intelligence during generation. Our results show that GenAI is able to create high-quality visual materials suitable for teaching, and at the same time, due to the presence of errors of varying severity in the depiction of insect representatives, it offers new possibilities for verifying students' knowledge. We therefore used the generated insect images to create a practical lesson called “Oh, insect! Is it real or fake?” to support the development of the students' critical thinking and their knowledge about the body structure of insects. Materials for this practical lesson are available for download in the electronic appendix of the paper. In our opinion, this method of using generative artificial intelligence can significantly enrich the teaching of biology dedicated to insects and other topics.
artificial intelligence; generative artificial intelligence; entomological literacy; photorealistic images; insects; biology teaching
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