St Bonaventure’s School met with a STEM Ambassador from the BBC. She discussed her career and the various different jobs involved in product creation.
Using a TED talk as a starting point students worked through the activities with the STEM Ambassador.
As an extension activity, students then used the...

Produced by Practical Action, these materials help students to consider the impacts of a product through its whole life cycle. A presentation describes the concept of lifecycle analysis (LCA) and gives some examples. Students are then challenged to consider the life cycle of familiar products, from raw materials,...

This classroom presentation supports the teaching of planned obsolescence and a product lifecycle. Using the example of a mobile phone, students explore the volume of phone sales over time and discuss how manufacturers can plan a product's lifespan, looking at product growth, maturity of sales and decline over time...

Produced by Practical Action, this short activity introduces the various factors that influence the choice of consumers. Students consider different products and the reasons behind why they would or would not purchase them. The activity is a perfect introduction to sustainability and aims to help students think...

The ‘production’ section of the Fixpert's resource focuses on producing a  high-quality working prototype that meets the problem described in the original design brief. Activities that support this section include: ‘hack a toothbrush’, starting points for innovative ideas, and making paper bowls. These activities...

One of the trial units from the Nuffield Primary Solutions in Design and Technology. In this unit, children explore when and why hats are worn: as parts of uniforms or for protection, for example.

Children also begin...

Produced by the Nuffield Foundation, the activities in this booklet use paper carrier bags as a context in which to explore designing, making and evaluating. There are a series of small tasks that encourage children to consider:

[b]The form of products[/b]
Paper carrier bags are usually mass produced...

One of the trial units from the Nuffield Primary Solutions in Design and Technology. In this unit, teachers can examine what children already know about a particular sort of product, some of the values they have with regard to the product and set the scene for them to find out more.

One of the trial units from the Nuffield Primary Solutions in Design and Technology. In this unit, children examine different every day tools, such as potato peelers. The aim of the task is to examine how a number of tools are used and consider how they could be designed differently.

One of the trial units from the Nuffield Primary Solutions in Design and Technology. Children consider testing proceedures to evaluate what food they like and don't like. Testing food products requires a more subjective response than the testing of other products. It is important to develop a considered view of why...

One of the trial units from the Nuffield Primary Solutions in Design and Technology. In this unit, children examine containers of varying sorts, their contents and why they are the shape they are - everyday items.

Use questions to guide the students' thinking about the purpose and possible uses for a number...

This collection of STEM education reports explores professional development across the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM subjects). The reports include:

A recommended code of governance for schools: a flexible framework for strategic planning

Space for technicians?

...

This resource develops coding with RobotC, in combination with VEX robotics. It provides a series of student tasks that increase in difficulty over time, developing student awareness of RobotC and its application within robotics. This resource would work as a compliment to using VEX IQ in the classroom and as a...

This activity is designed to build on understanding of programming commands and what they are used to do in a program. It requires learners to show a...