The VHETTA Company

Type: Companies/Organisations (Event)

Link: http://www.vhetta.com.au/downloads/FoodDesignChallenge2008.pdf

Year Level: Prep-12

Summary:

Each year the VHETTA company encourages primary school students to complete a certain food related design challenge. For 2008 this challenge requires students to create,
make and review a healthy recipe for a fruit or vegetable based topping, sauce or filling to be served with a basic pancake recipe.

Evaluation:

This company involves whole schools in thinking technologically and creating. The prizes offered for the winner of the design challenge gives students motivation to continuously improve their entry. By choosing the context of Food creation, the VHETTA association allows students to work within a real life context for a purpose that is relavant and engaging.

Boiling Water Design Challenge

Type: Text and Print Resources

Link: http://btc.montana.edu/messenger/teachers/Modules/lessons/coolboilingwater.pdf

Year Level: 9-12

Summary:

This is a complete lesson plan of a design challenge. The challenge outlined in this lesson plan requires students to design and construct a container that will keep items cool when placed in boiling water. A teaspoon of butter will be placed in the container. An adequate solution to this design challenge must keep the temperature inside the container low enough to prevent the butter from melting.

Evaluation:

This lesson plan is very clearly formatted and easy to understand. It provides comprehensive information on the activities necessary for the design challenge and covers any background information needed for completion of the lesson. The challenge itself is engaging and has strong cross curricular links to Science Education.

Free Website Templates

Type: Multimedia

Link: http://www.freewebsitetemplates.com/

Year Level: 5-12


Summary:

This site offers free website templates of various themes and colours.

Evaluation:

These templates can be used by technology students or teachers to enhance the presentation of class websites. Due to the wide variety of themes and designs, specific templates can be chosen which correlate closely with assignments or design contexts.


Examples:

Fashion Template



Transport Template

'Make: Technology on your time' Website

Type: Website

Link: http://www.makezine.com/

Year Level: Prep-12

Summary:

This site offers an extensive range of technology design projects that range from creating a jack-0-lanturn from leggo to a squirrel-proof bird feeder. The website is an extension of the "MAKE: Technology on your time" magazine and provides forums, project ideas and instructions for many design challenges and technology lessons.

Evaluation:

The project ideas offered on this site can be tailored to suit a primary school environment quite easilly. These examples also provide inspiration for alternate challenges and ideas. The forum is also quite valuable as it allows access to information on difficulties others have experienced with the challenges and also user evaluations of these projects.

Technology Projects for the Classroom Book

Type: Text and Print Resources

Title: Technology Projects for the Classroom

Author/s: Allan Kaufman and Jim Flowers

Year Level: Middle School

Summary:

This book contains 20 engaging projects for middle school technology students. The projects range from basic to advanced each featuring background information for teachers.

Evaluation:

The degree of difficulty of each project is clearly noted making it easy to choose activities in relation to students abilities. The background information section of the book includes real-world parallels and applications of related technology; safety precautions; detailed construction procedure; and study questions. All materials are readily available and most are inexpensive making these projects perfect for the classroom.

Front Cover: