A CREATIVE LEARNING KIT FOR CHILDREN 8+
We’re building alternative tech futures.
Fables & Futures is a collection of graphic fables and activities that help children question, evaluate, and reimagine the technologies shaping their lives.
WHAT’S IN THE TOOLKIT
A toolkit for talking about tech and society.
Emerging technologies like AI are reshaping our world, yet most children have no real tools to understand what's at stake, and how to build toward an alternative future.
Futures & Fables goes beyond tech literacy, helping children and their communities explore how technology shapes culture, who holds power, and how all of us can have a voice in the future we're building — through three companion pieces spanning design, experimentation, and making.
Graphic Fables
Two illustrated stories set in the fantastical world of Massa Mist, which follow Muff, Zuzo, Bam and Chi Chi as they encounter different technologies.
GameBender
A web-based game-building platform which supports children to tinker with and create their own games in Massa Mist using code.
Project Based Activities
Collage, storytelling, and design prompts that turn the comic’s questions into something you can make, hold, and talk about.
THE COMICS
Two fables.
One fantastical world.
Set in Massa Mist, a lush valley of curious plants and powerful new technologies, three friends discover the benefits and consequences of wielding new technologies — and the ripple effects that spread across their community.
Issue #1: The Forbidden Fungi
When Muff is left out of the community's response to a valley-wide crisis, a hidden network of listening fungi seem like the perfect solution. But some connections come with a cost. A story about surveillance, privacy, and what happens when good intentions meet powerful technology.
Issue #2: Bam’s Brew
When Bam discovers a secret ingredient that turns a struggling restaurant into an overnight sensation, freedom finally seem within reach - until the spring at Massa Mist's heart begins to run dry. A story about data, exploitation, and the hidden cost of extraction.
GAMEBENDER
Get creative with computing.
Set in the world of Massa Mist, GameBender is a creative computing environment where anyone can create games and modify them in real time, adding new characters, effects, or rules using simple code stickers. It's designed to get you creative, silly, and curious. A set of design prompts helps children continue exploring the key themes from the Massa Mist fables inside the GameBender environment.
PROJECT-BASED ACTIVITIES
Craft your own point of view.
Futures & Fables pairs the graphic fables with project-based activities spanning character design, comic strip collage, and future forecasting. Children create rich artifacts that build on the world of Massa Mist — communicating their own point of view about technology and its impact on communities, and imagining alternative futures they want to live in.
Guided activities help children:
Build a vocabulary for talking about tech
Weigh tradeoffs like privacy vs. connection
Map cause-and-effect in complex systems
Identify how different communities are affected by technology
Practice ethical decision-making with real constraints
Tell their own stories & redesign tools
WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING
Conversations with Fables & Futures.
“It’s cute, funny, accessible, but also tackling an important subject matter that’s not coming up in their classes.”
— Parent
“This world is interesting, they have technology but it doesn’t look like ours. But actually they are similar because the technology is so invisible to them, they don’t even realize they’re using it. That’s like us.”
— Student
“I am having nuanced conversations with students of all ages about the risks with technology. They just need a framework to think through, that’s why grounding in stories is so important. That’s what this comic does so well.”
— Educator
MEET THE CREATOR
Ariam Mogos
Ariam is an educator, technologist, designer, and children’s author who believes young people should critique and create the technologies shaping our world. She works at the intersection of play, justice and emerging tech, helping youth examine AI and other technologies to imagine more just and alternative futures.
Her work spans Africa, Asia, Europe, and the US, with partners including UNICEF, the Scratch Foundation, and the LEGO Foundation. She currently teaches at the Stanford d.school, and facilitates creative learning experiences in classrooms, libraries, and museums. Her work has been recognized by Mozilla, Fast Company, the 92nd Y, and the 2022 National Geographic Wayfinder Award.
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