Funding Cuts

This worksheet is designed for students in Grades 6-8 to strengthen reading comprehension, historical analysis, and critical thinking by exploring the challenges AI research faced during the 1970s and 1980s, a period often called the “AI Winter.” Students read an informational passage about funding cuts, reduced academic support, and shifting expectations, then match key events to their descriptions to better understand how economic and institutional factors influence scientific progress.

Academic Focus

• Economic Influences on Innovation (Grades 6-8) – Examine how funding and resources affect research and development.
• AI Research History – Understand the causes and consequences of the AI Winter.
• Reading Informational Texts – Analyze details and vocabulary related to technology and funding.
• Cause & Consequence Reasoning – Identify how reduced support led to slowed progress in AI research.

Instructional Benefits

• Teacher-Created Resource – Designed by educators to align with middle school ELA, science, and social studies standards.
• Clear Matching Activity – Supports organized thinking and accurate comprehension checks.
• Historical Context Building – Helps students see technology as influenced by social and economic conditions.
• Flexible Use – Ideal for history of technology units, STEM lessons, independent practice, or homework.

This printable worksheet helps students recognize that technological progress depends not only on ideas but also on sustained support and realistic expectations. By examining the AI Winter, learners build vocabulary, comprehension, and analytical skills while gaining insight into how cycles of optimism and decline shape innovation. Suitable for classroom or homeschool use, this no-prep activity supports deeper understanding of the forces that influence scientific and technological development.

This worksheet is part of our History of AI collection.