Student designing in Stage 2 Science and Technology
The Foundation Statements and the Stage 2 outcome
for designing and making place an emphasis on
students:
 developing design ideas that recognise the needs
of users and audiences
 implementing a design process using drawings,
models and prototypes
 evaluating design solutions.
At Stage 2, students are better able to talk about the
processes of design. They describe how they will go about
a task and suggest better ways of proceeding. Students
see the importance of planning and they willingly create
drawings, plans and other documents to communicate
ideas to others. At Stage 2, students start to appreciate the
importance of seeing a design task from the point of view
of a user or audience.
Following are two samples of classroom practice.
Sample Task A: Design
and publish a cooking
book for a favourite food
Stage 2 Task A: Design and publish a cooking book for a favourite food
Teacher: This SciTech
design and publish task
worked seamlessly with
a HSIE country study unit.
background learning
exploring ideas
considering criteria
Students brought cookbooks from home and discussed the features that make them interesting,
useful and attractive. They also discussed the purpose of their cookbook and the audience.
Stage 2 Task A: Design and publish a cooking book for a favourite food (cont.)
planning
generating ideas
Teacher: “After deciding on the audience for their cookbook,
students selected features they wanted to include. This was
based on the list developed from earlier investigation.”
Students worked in production teams. Each page had two
students dedicated to word processing and two students
dedicated to graphic design and production. All students
worked in both a text team and a graphics team.
Students developed proposed layouts for the cookbook
cover and their own production team pages.
Stage 2 Task A: Design and publish a cooking book for a favourite food (cont.)
Just prior to publication students from each
production group brought together their work
and laid it in the order of its development.
Top row – final pages ready for publication.
Middle row – final edits of layout.
Bottom row – original page layout designs.
process learning
evaluating process
Teacher: “In most cases the finished product bore little resemblance to the initial design. However,
the process was valuable as students’ comments indicated a new found awareness of spending more
time on design in order to save time during production.
They saw the importance of communicating ideas to other team members.”
Sample Task B :
Design and model ideas
for better school grounds
Stage 2 Task B: Design and model ideas for better school grounds (cont.)
Students from Years 3/4 created a mind map to
identify what they thought was a built
environment.
defining a brief
They went for a walk around the school to identify
built environments that needed improving. They
recorded all the sites they found and then discussed
why each might need improving.
From the identified needs they developed a design
brief.
Stage 2 Task B: Design and model ideas for better school grounds (cont.)
We had to identify the groups that would use the site
and what these people would need.
• Students use the bus area to catch the bus in the
morning and at home time.
• Students, parents and teachers can use the bike
racks to store their bikes while at school.
This is where students wait for the bus.
If it rains they get wet!!!!
This is where we currently keep our
bikes. They are not locked and we
have had trouble with people
stealing our bikes.
We surveyed the school to see how many people
would:
1. use the bus area to wait for the bus.
2. ride bikes to school.
clarifying the brief
We created a Plus and Minus Chart to find out the facts
about building a bus and bike shelter.
Stage 2 Task B: Design and model ideas for better school grounds (cont.)
We then got a school map and walked
around the area looking for good places to
put the bus and bike shelter. We also had to
contact the council and find out where the
boundaries for the school ground were.
We formed teams to work in and each group
identified a place to put the bus and bike
shelter. There was lots of discussion and
negotiating.
As a whole class we needed a set of rules
(design criteria) for everyone to follow.
1. The bus and bike shelter needed to be
close together so our Principal could
supervise the area.
2. The bike shelter needed to be enclosed.
3. Both shelters needed to have a roof to stop
people and bikes from getting wet and protect
them from the sun.
4. The bike shelter needed to fit up to 15–20
bikes.
establishing criteria for success
Stage 2 Task B: Design and model ideas for better school grounds (cont.)
using experts to assist
Once we started to think about building a
shelter we had lots and lots of questions. In our
class we had parents that could help us with
our questions about designing and building.
Mick is a carpenter he told us about building a
structure.
Ian is a surveyor he talked to us about planning
and designing our structures. He was very
impressed by our designs.
using experts to assist
Some questions were:
1. Who do we have to get permission from to
build our shelters ?
2. How do we put poles into the ground?
Stage 2 Task B: Design and model ideas for better school grounds (cont.)
communicating
Each group presented their plan to the class
explaining where and why they put the shelter in
a particular place.
We had to sketch a top view (birds eye view)
side view and front view of the area to show
where each group would put the bus and bike
shelter.
generating ideas
After drawing our plans we then set
about building our models of the
school area, bus and bike shelters.
Stage 2 Task B: Design and model ideas for better school grounds (cont.)
First of all we used paper mache to model the
ground area of our school. We had to show the
grassed areas, the concrete area, the built up
areas and the gardens.
producing models
We had to continually go
back to our plan while we
were building to check
that things were in the
right spot.
producing models
Each group then
started using the
recycled materials to
build their shelters
and other buildings
that were in the area.
producing models
Some groups found that the things
they used didn’t work or weren’t
stable enough so they had to rethink
the materials they were using!!
evaluating materials
Stage 2 Task B: Design and model ideas for better school grounds (cont.)
presenting proposals
Once we had our built structures on
our model we had to paint them so
they looked like the real thing.
producing models
Each group found the building process was great
fun but hard work. It took longer than we thought
and you had to work slowly.
We had 7 models created by our groups with each
one being very different.
In groups we learnt that it was important to talk
about the ideas we had, work together and share
things.
We would like to:
• share our models with the whole
school (students, teachers and parents)
and ask them to vote on the design they
think will best suit our school.
• talk to the P & C and our Principal and
propose that we build our structures
• share our presentation at a school
assembly.
presenting proposals