Design and Technologies Teaching Ideas by Joanne Villis is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at http://intertecheducation.edublogs.org/.
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Design and Technologies knowledge and understanding
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Recognise the role of people in design and technologies occupations and explore factors, including sustainability that impact on the design of products, services and environments to meet community needs (ACTDEK010)
Investigate the suitability of materials, systems, components, tools and equipment for a range of purposes (ACTDEK013) |
Year 3
Teaching idea 1: Solar ovens
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Year 4
Teaching idea 1: Water
Lesson 1: Discuss sources of water in the home. Where can water be found (ie tap, toilet, washing machine etc)? Then ask students, how does the water get there? Where does it come from? Play How Water Works, an interactive guide showing the processes and equipment used in a water system (from tap to back).
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Lesson 2: Students turn on a tap to get water but not everyone does this. Water is not distributed evenly throughout the world. Ask students what they know about this?
Show students the video to the right of a lady pumping water in Africa. Invite students to draw and label a diagram explaining how they think the water pump works. Then download the PDF below which has a labelled diagram and explanation about how a well works.
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Lesson 3: Invite students to consider their own use of water at home. Watch the video to the right which shows how much water comes out of a tap in 30 seconds. Ask students to identify one way in which water is wasted in the home and design a way of reducing the water wastage. How will their design work? What materials will they need for their design? Will their design be aesthetically appealing?
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Lesson 4 & 5: Up to 25% of water in our homes can be flushed down the toilet. Prior to 1982, toilets consisted of a single flush only. This meant the same amount of water was used for each flush regardless of how much needed to be flushed. In 1982 dual flush toilets were invented. "The most efficient dual-flush toilets use 4.5 L for a full flush and 3 L for a half flush". When designers are thinking of new toilet designs they need to take into consideration that too little water in a flush can create drainage problems as it’s the water that pushes the waste along sewer drainage lines (Information source).
Place students in groups and ask them to brainstorm different toilet designs they have seen before. Ask them to draw and label diagrams of each type of toilet they discuss and rank the toilets from the one which uses the most water to the one which uses the least amount of water.
Lesson 6 & 7: Invite students to spend some time researching interesting/different toilet designs. Ask them to choose one design and create a 2 minute presentation for the class. Their presentation needs to include:
- A labelled diagram of the parts of the toilet and what each part is made of
- An explanation about how the toilet works
- An explanation as to why their chosen toilet uses less water compared to that of regular toilets
- The suitability of their chosen toilet for different locations (ie home, school, public places, Africa)
Place students in groups and ask them to brainstorm different toilet designs they have seen before. Ask them to draw and label diagrams of each type of toilet they discuss and rank the toilets from the one which uses the most water to the one which uses the least amount of water.
Lesson 6 & 7: Invite students to spend some time researching interesting/different toilet designs. Ask them to choose one design and create a 2 minute presentation for the class. Their presentation needs to include:
- A labelled diagram of the parts of the toilet and what each part is made of
- An explanation about how the toilet works
- An explanation as to why their chosen toilet uses less water compared to that of regular toilets
- The suitability of their chosen toilet for different locations (ie home, school, public places, Africa)
Teaching idea 2: Bottled Water
This teaching idea can be integrated into the Primary Connections Year 4 Science program Material World.
The Science content descriptors for this unit:
Chemical Sciences: Natural and processed materials have a range of physical properties; These properties can influence their use (ACSSU074)
I have applied one of the technology elaborations (examining the suitability of a service or everyday system and proposing improvements, for example a water saving system for a bathroom at home) in order to come up with this teaching idea.
The Science content descriptors for this unit:
Chemical Sciences: Natural and processed materials have a range of physical properties; These properties can influence their use (ACSSU074)
I have applied one of the technology elaborations (examining the suitability of a service or everyday system and proposing improvements, for example a water saving system for a bathroom at home) in order to come up with this teaching idea.
Lesson plan:
Introduction:
"Bottled water is drinking water which is packaged mainly in plastic water bottles. "The global bottled water sales have increased dramatically over the past several decades...The rate of consumption more than quadrupled between 1990 and 2005...Factory-containers of water have an indefinite shelf life, as long as they remain unopened and undamaged" (source).
Introduction:
"Bottled water is drinking water which is packaged mainly in plastic water bottles. "The global bottled water sales have increased dramatically over the past several decades...The rate of consumption more than quadrupled between 1990 and 2005...Factory-containers of water have an indefinite shelf life, as long as they remain unopened and undamaged" (source).
Possible research tasks:
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Additional idea 1: Persuasive writing
Give students the following scenario: Two friends are out to lunch and both want some water, but one asks the waiter for tap water and the other for bottled spring water. The person who asked for tap water laughs and says that it is silly to pay for water, because water is water. The other disagrees. They start arguing about what is a better drink choice: bottled water or tap water. Write two persuasive texts to support each position.
Give students the following scenario: Two friends are out to lunch and both want some water, but one asks the waiter for tap water and the other for bottled spring water. The person who asked for tap water laughs and says that it is silly to pay for water, because water is water. The other disagrees. They start arguing about what is a better drink choice: bottled water or tap water. Write two persuasive texts to support each position.
Additional idea 2: The video to the right may be integrated with this activity and it links back to Digital Technologies 4.1 and 4.3, sound data.
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