BioStories: A child-AI co-creation storytelling system for biology education in primary school

Children in upper primary education often struggle to understand complex and invisible human biology concepts (e.g., circulation, digestion), which are difficult to grasp at this developmental stage. While storytelling and analogies can support learning, their classroom use is often constrained by limited time, resources, and teacher expertise. This paper presents BioStories, an AI-supported co-creative storytelling system that integrates interactive activities to support children aged 9–11 in biology learning. The system enables children to engage in multimodal interactions, including creating personalised “organ buddy” characters through drawing and collaboratively constructing stories with an AI partner using guided prompts and visual cues. A mixed-method, user-centred design process informed the system, including a pre-design workshop, iterative prototyping, and evaluation with children and experts. Findings indicate that combining interactive drawing, visual scaffolding, and conversational co-creation enhances engagement, enjoyment, and perceived understanding of biology concepts. This work contributes design insights into AI-supported storytelling for playful and meaningful science learning.