Learn to Use AI Tools for Productivity and Creativity (Beginner-Friendly)

This hands-on course helps nontechnical learners become comfortable using free AI tools to boost productivity, creativity, and confidence at work, in school, or at home. You’ll start from zero and learn how to write effective AI “prompts” (simple instructions you type into an AI tool). By the end of the course, you’ll be using prompts at an intermediate level to generate ideas, draft content, organize projects, and explore creative possibilities. The final 30 minutes of each class are open Q&A and collaborative practice. 

You don’t need to be a strong writer, designer, or marketer to get real results. You also don’t need to think of yourself as “artistic” to create eye-catching social media posts, or even a fun illustrated storybook for a child or grandchild.

By the end of the course, you’ll be able to:

1. Improve productivity for work, freelancing, or school
2. Learn faster using AI as a practice and coaching partner for languages and other skills
3. Explore new frontiers in writing, design, and creative projects with confidence.
4. Refresh your knowldege with the free ebook we use in class using examples, customizable prompting templates, helpful tips, and additional resources. 

What to bring: A laptop (or tablet) that can access the internet. You should be comfortable with basic computer skills like typing, writing emails, web browsing.

Instructor: Ariel Strong has worked in software development since the early 1990s. She hosts the Northern Arizona AI Meetup and founded FireFlight, a local business applying AI to problems related to community resilience, sustainability, and safety.

Class meets on four Thursdays from 10 a.m. - 12 p.m., April 9, 16, 23, 30.

Attend in-person at the Fourth Street Campus or on Zoom.

Dr. Robert Goddard is widely considered the father of the space age and his groundbreaking experiments transformed rocketry from imagination into reality. This program will use historical images, personal writings, and accounts of his pioneering 1926 liquid‑fuel rocket launch that beckoned in the era of modern spaceflight. The presentation also highlights Esther Goddard’s essential role in preserving her husband's legacy and ensuring his contributions continue to inspire future explorers.

Speaker Kevin Schindler is the historian and public information officer at Lowell Observatory - where he has worked for 31 years - and an active member of the Flagstaff history and science communities. He has authored nine books, including most recently Robert Goddard's Massachusetts. Kevin will have copies available at the talk. In May 2023, he served as Astronomer in Residence at the Grand Canyon and he was recently named by The Friends of the Flagstaff City-Coconino County Public Library as the 2025 recipient of the Copper Quill award. Fun fact about Kevin: he has both a fossil crab and an asteroid named after him!

Join botanist/artist Kate Watters and poet Linda Maria Alvarado for a morning focused on flowers, friendship, and fancy phrases! Learn techniques for flower-pressing, writing nature-inspired verse, and how to combine the two. Each participant will create a poem using manual typewriters, and decorated with pressed flowers, resulting in a perfect Mother’s Day gift, or a personal keepsake. Materials are included, but please bring a notebook and pen for writing practice. 

Linda completed a certificate in creative writing from UCLA Extension in 2024, and her poems are published by the Museum of Northern Arizona’s Poetry Maps project, where she serves as a poet laureate . She has a BA in Fine Arts, MA in Anthropology, and her business, Paperclip Poetry, provides custom poems at events throughout Northern Arizona.

Kate Watters founded Wild Heart Farm in Rimrock, Arizona after nearly 20 years studying and restoring wild lands as a botanist. She grows food, flowers, medicine and biological diversity and teaches sustainable gardening and permaculture.  Her creative mission is to explore the details and diversity of people and places through writing, music, gardening, and art.

Minor children:

• If you are bringing a child, the minimum age for this course is 12. Children will receive a discount of $30.
• Please limit your registration to two children per adult.
• Please call with any questions on children attending: 928-226-4174.