On the Fence employs a proven educational approach: teaching critical AI, media, as well as health and digital literacy, by having students practice the very techniques they need to recognise and resist. Just like cybersecurity's well-established "Capture the Flag" competitions, where students learn defence by practicing offensive techniques in safe environments, or marketing courses where students create persuasive campaigns to understand consumer psychology, the On the Fence competition provides students with safe AI tools to manipulate a community decision within a completely artificial social media landscape.

Research on cybersecurity education demonstrates that learning by doing with offensive techniques helps students understand concepts, realise their meaning in the real world, and aids in memory retention [1]. This intentional reversal, having students become the manipulators rather than passive observers, achieves learning outcomes difficult to attain through traditional approaches.

The methodology draws on psychological inoculation theory, a framework that shows how exposure to weakened examples of manipulation builds resistance. Research demonstrates that prebunking interventions (where students are pre-emptively exposed to weakened examples of manipulation techniques) can significantly reduce susceptibility to misinformation across cultures and demographics, improving people's ability to recognise manipulation techniques and discern trustworthy from untrustworthy content [2]. By actively designing agent strategies and crafting narratives, students develop a deep, embodied understanding of algorithmic manipulation that transforms them from potential victims into critical analysts.

This hands-on approach doesn't teach students to be manipulators; rather, it demystifies manipulation itself, inoculating young Australians against these tactics when deployed against them in real life situations.