Activity Introduction
Quick summary: 
This lesson presents students with the design brief for the creation of a simple sideshow game that could be created and used in a small school fair or community fete. It requires students to consider not only the concept and function of the sideshow game but also the way it could be sourced from sustainable or recycled materials and constructed safely by students using appropriate tools.
This lesson sequence will require five to eight standard classroom periods of 45-50 minutes to complete.
Learning intentions:
- Students will investigate the properties of a range of materials, tools and equipment and evaluate their suitability for designing and constructing a useable sideshow game.
- Students will select the best materials, tools, equipment and methods, ensuring these are both environmentally sustainable and safe to work with
- Students will develop, test and describe their sideshow game design idea by producing graphical plans of the design and/or by constructing a scaled 3D model of the design
- Students will describe ways to produce their design using the selected materials, tools and equipment by creating a textual, graphical or audio-visual instruction manual.
21st century skills:
Australian Curriculum Mapping
Content descriptions:
Year 5 & 6 Design & Technology
- Investigate the characteristics and properties of a range of materials, systems, components, tools and equipment and evaluate the impact of their use (ACTDEK023)
- Select appropriate materials, components, tools, equipment and techniques and apply safe procedures to make designed solutions (ACTDEP026)
Years 7 & 8 Design and Technology
- Analyse ways to produce designed solutions through selecting and combining characteristics and properties of materials, systems, components, tools and equipment (ACTDEK034)
- Generate, develop, test and communicate design ideas, plans and processes for various audiences using appropriate technical terms and technologies including graphical representation techniques (ACTDEP036)
Year 5, 6 and 7 Mathematics
- Apply the enlargement transformation to familiar two dimensional shapes and explore the properties of the resulting image compared with the original (ACMMG115)
Syllabus outcomes: ST3-13MW, ST3-5WT, T4.3.1, T4.3.2, T4.2.1, T4.2.2, T4.5.2, MA3‑2WM
General capabilities: Ethical understanding, Literacy, Numeracy, Creative and Critical Thinking, Personal and social capability
Cross-curriculum priority: Sustainability
Relevant parts of Year 5 to 8 achievement standards:
By the end of Year 6, students describe competing considerations in the design of products, services and environments, taking into account sustainability. They explain how the features of technologies impact on designed solutions for each of the prescribed technologies contexts.
Students create designed solutions suitable for identified needs or opportunities. They suggest criteria for success, including sustainability considerations, and use these to evaluate their ideas and designed solutions. They combine design ideas and communicate these to audiences using graphical representation techniques. Students record a project plan including production processes and they select and use appropriate technologies and techniques correctly and safely to produce their designed solution.
By the end of Year 8, students explain how social and sustainability considerations influence the design of an innovative and enterprising solution to meet stated needs. They plan, document and effectively manage processes and resources to produce a designed solution for the given context. Students develop criteria for success, including innovation and sustainability considerations, and use these to judge the suitability of their ideas, solutions and processes. They use appropriate protocols when collaborating, and creating and communicating ideas, information and solutions face-to-face and online.
Relevant parts of Years 5 through 8 Mathematics achievement standards:
By the end of Year 6, students describe transformations of two-dimensional shapes and solve problems involving length and area.
By the end of Year 8, students convert between units of measurement for length and area.
Topic: STEM, Sustainability
This lesson is part of the wider unit of work: Sustainable STEM Sideshow.
Time required: 280 mins (approx. 6 standard lesson periods of 45 to 50 minutes each).
Level of teacher scaffolding: Medium – Teacher needs to introduce design brief, explain terminology, introduce and explain key performance indicators and facilitate group work.
Resources required:
- Background Info: Making ‘To Scale’ Drawings and Design Blueprints’
- Calculators (one per team)
- Construction materials – to be collected by student teams.
- Cool Australia e-Learning interactive: ‘Sustainable Design’
- Design Concept Planner Template – about 3 copies per team
- Device capable of creating audiovisual recordings, such as an iPad or camera
- Interactive whiteboard or data projector (for displaying design brief and useful web links)
- Planning media – e.g. butcher’s paper and pens, whiteboards and markers or digital notepads
- Scissors, tape, staplers, paints and other general design and construction materials.
- Student Worksheet booklet for Lesson 1: Sustainable Design (one per student)
Keywords: Design brief; production materials; sustainable resources; equipment technologies; client; dynamic; scale model; instruction manual; key performance indicators; evaluation.
Cool Australia’s curriculum team continually reviews and refines our resources to be in line with changes to the Australian Curriculum.
Teacher Preparation
