Activity Introduction
Quick summary: This lesson is part of a unit that explores how electricity and processed materials combine to power mobile phones. In this lesson, students design a sustainable mobile phone of the future. In teams, students develop and pitch their ideas and are scored on various criteria, including their phone’s sustainability.
Learning intentions:
- Students develop creativity and entrepreneurial thinking skills
- Students understand how to effectively pitch an idea
- Students demonstrate their understanding of circuitry, precious metals and sustainability through the design of a futuristic phone
- Students work in teams to collaboratively solve problems.
21st century skills:
Australian Curriculum Mapping
Content descriptions:
Year 5 & 6 – Design and Technology
- Examine how people in design and technologies occupations address competing considerations, including sustainability in the design of products, services, and environments for current and future use (ACTDEK019)
- Investigate how electrical energy can control movement, sound or light in a designed product or system (ACTDEK020)
- Investigate characteristics and properties of a range of materials, systems, components, tools and equipment and evaluate the impact of their use (ACTDEK023)
Year 5 – Humanities and Social Sciences
- The difference between needs and wants and why choices need to be made about how limited resources are used (ACHASSK119)
- Types of resources (natural, human, capital) and the ways societies use them to satisfy the needs and wants of present and future generations (ACHASSK120)
- Influences on consumer choices and methods that can be used to help make informed personal consumer and financial choices (ACHASSK121)
Year 6 – Humanities and Social Sciences
- How the concept of opportunity cost involves choices about the alternative use of resources and the need to consider trade-offs (ACHASSK149)
- The effect that consumer and financial decisions can have on the individual, the broader community and the environment (ACHASSK150)
- The reasons businesses exist and the different ways they provide goods and services (ACHASSK151)
Year 6 – Science (Chemical and Physical)
- Changes to materials can be reversible or irreversible (ACSSU095)
- Electrical energy can be transferred and transformed in electrical circuits and can be generated from a range of sources (ACSSU097)
Syllabus outcomes: ST3-14BE, ST3-15I, ST3-16P, ST3-6PW, ST3-7PW, ST3-13MW, ST3-6PW, ST3-12MW
General capabilities: Critical and Creative Thinking, Ethical Understanding.
Cross-curriculum priority: Sustainability.
Relevant parts of Year 5 & 6 achievement standards:
Year 5 & 6 – Design and Technology
Students critically examine technologies − materials, systems, components, tools and equipment − that are used regularly in the home and in local, national, regional or global communities, with consideration of society, ethics and social and environmental sustainability factors.
Year 5 – Humanities and Social Sciences
Students investigate how the characteristics of environments are influenced by humans in different times and places, as they seek resources, settle in new places and manage the spaces within them.
Year 6 – Science
They learn about transfer and transformations of electricity, and continue to develop an understanding of energy flows through systems.
Topic: Sustainability, Creative Thinking, STEM/STEAM.
This lesson is part of the wider unit of work MobileMuster – Hands-on Mobile Phone Recycling – Years 3-6.
Time required: 120 mins.
Level of teacher scaffolding: Medium – facilitate class discussion, support groups in developing their ideas.
Resources required:
- Student Worksheets – one copy per student
- Device capable of presenting a video to the class
- Pitch Perfect Factsheet – one between four students
Keywords: Mobile Muster, Sustainable, sustainability, mobile phone, design, entrepreneurship, STEM/STEAM, pitch, creativity, collaborative problem solving.
Cool Australia’s curriculum team continually reviews and refines our resources to be in line with changes to the Australian Curriculum.
