Fund it. Build it. Teach it.

Plan and fund your hands-on CS and AI program

Your state's standards, grants, and hands-on activities in one place

What do you teach, and where?

Two answers and we can show you exactly what applies to you.

Start here

See the hands-on activities your students will do

Explore by grade or by our micro:bit kits and accessories.

Grade band

Product

Lessons 35

Structured, classroom-ready, tied to a grade band.

Nothing in lessons matches these filters.

Explore all 35 lessons on the Lesson Library →

Projects 63

Build-along activities. These work at any grade.

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Explore all 63 projects on the Lesson Library →

Tutorials 38

Short how-tos for a component or kit, plus the AI literacy courses.

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Explore all 38 tutorials on the Lesson Library →

Nothing matches that combination. Try clearing a filter, or build the lesson you need with Tutorial Builder.

Fund it

Fund it without guessing

Every grant we could find that pays for computer science, AI literacy, STEM hardware, or teacher training. Most of these are not ours. We just made them easy to find.

Pick your state to see real grants. Every grant we track is filed by state, so there is no single national list. Choose above and this fills with your state's open opportunities, each linking to the full details.

Choose your state
Cover of the Forward Education grant guide

The grant guide

How to find the right grant, what reviewers look for, and the language that gets a technology request approved. Written for people who have never written one.

Get the guide
A Forward Education team member helping with a grant application

Grant assistance program

We help you build the application. Quotes, standards alignment, and the program description, prepared for the grant you are actually applying for.

Ask for help
Our grant

Get MicroChat for your school, free

The MicroChat CS and AI Literacy Grant gives your organization free site licensing, ready-to-run PD materials, and live training for your team.

Apply now →

Build it

Same skill set, two ways of hands-on learning

Making something real, and working well with a machine. A program that teaches one without the other leaves a gap that shows up the moment a student graduates.

Students building a project with a Forward Education kit at a workshop

Hands-on Robotics and Coding

Students build something physical that solves a problem they can point at. Sensors, circuits, and code that produce real data from the room they are sitting in, not a worksheet answer.

  • Climate Action KitEnvironmental sensing and a real dataset to argue from.
  • Coding for Good KitProjects that fix something in the school or community.
  • Smart Solar Energy KitGeneration, storage, and the tradeoffs between them.
A student using MicroChat to build block code

Collaborating with AI

Students work alongside a machine instead of handing it the assignment. Teachers do the same when the lesson they need does not exist yet. Both are skills now, and both can be taught.

  • MicroChatMicroChat puts student ideas into block code, and helps them understand how it works.
  • Tutorial Builder For teachersDescribe a lesson in plain language, get a MakeCode tutorial in minutes.
MicroChat on a laptop next to a micro:bit showing Hello World

They work together, and they work alone

MicroChat works with micro:bit only, and all of our coding and robotics kits. That gives you a low floor for basic micro:bit coding, and a high ceiling with wide walls for creative and interactive projects.

Teach it

Teach it in a way your district will approve

The AI half of the program only works if it clears review. MicroChat was built for that. It is scoped to block-based coding help, it will not produce finished work, and it does not collect anything about the student using it.

Nothing to hand in

It guides toward the block. It will not write the assignment, so it does not create an academic honesty problem.

No accounts, no PII

Session-based. No student names, no logins, nothing stored about who asked what.

Built for review

A privacy summary written for IT teams, not lawyers, so the approval conversation is short.

  • No student PII
  • FERPA friendly
  • COPPA friendly
  • Sessions, no accounts

Case study

One kit won at a conference. Now 35 travel the district.

Berkeley County School District in South Carolina keeps about 35 Climate Action Kits in circulation, and almost none of them live in a classroom. They live with a team of about seven instructional coaches who carry them into schools from kindergarten up, and stay to help run the lesson.

Berkeley County School District Climate Action Kit case study
District
Berkeley County School District, South Carolina
Grades using the kit
Kindergarten through middle school
Kits in circulation
About 35, shared district-wide
Who delivers it
About seven district instructional coaches
Product
Climate Action Kit with micro:bit

Then the Climate Action Kits are great, because now they get more input devices than what is on the micro:bit, and more outputs that are also fun.

Philip Sheridan, Innovative Learning Coordinator

Coaches hold the kits, so no individual teacher owns the storage, setup, or troubleshooting. Teachers outside computer science care most about the real-world framing and the standards connections, not the hardware.

Read the full case study

Talk to someone who knows your state

Tell us where you are and what you are trying to start, grow, or add. We will point you at the grants that fit and the lessons that match your standards.

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