Published in January 1998, Design skills for work was a two-part report written by the Technology Education Research Unit for the Design Council.

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In this activity, students take the role of a graphic designer. Their task is to create a mascot for a new primary school. Students use a web-based digital drawing tool package to draw their design. Students are encouraged to work both individually and in small groups...

This resource gives students a brief overview of the different options available when building a parachute for the CanSat Competition. Students will learn about the underlying physics of parachutes and their design and how to control the speed of their CanSat. 

Learning objectives:

• Understand...

This is a problem solving lesson, designed to help you assess how well students are able to:

• Select appropriate mathematical methods to use for an unstructured problem
• Interpret a problem situation, identifying constraints and variables and specify assumptions.
• Work with 2- and 3-...

In this activity students are asked to consider how they would improve five amusing experiments by evaluating aspects of the experimental design including control of variables, sample size, bias, control groups and quality of data. 

A case study from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) archives looking at how viruses and bacteria also take advantage of manmade infrastructure to travel and spread. People are not the only things to hop on and off buses and trains. The University College London Healthy Infrastructure...

This resource, from the University of Nottingham, describes a number of investigations which could be carried out in heathland habitats. Heathlands are excellent habitats to use for designing and carrying out experiments. Plants are often relatively easy to identify when compared with other habitats and...

In this activity from Cre8ate maths students are encouraged to experiment with different kinds of symmetry to create a suitable logo.

There is an exercise in using symmetrical properties to reproduce previously designed logos and this activity is complemented by Creating a logo, which gives students a free...

This collection of three resources asks students to:

*design and model the physical elements of a robot arm and demonstrate how this could be achieved using a smart material. Students can then subsequently use this information to support the design of a robot arm.

*design and model a robot arm in 2D,...

One of the trial units from the Nuffield Primary Solutions in Design and Technology. In this unit, children design a supermarket car park to a detailed design specification. This task could be linked with a geography local study, as it will highlight the varying needs of the people using a car park.

The...

This problem solving lesson is intended to help you assess how well students are able to:

• Recognize and use common 2D representations of 3D objects
• Identify and use the appropriate formula for finding the circumference of a circle

The initial problem to solve is calculating the...

Computer Aided Design (CAD) drawing is an important industrial tool used extensively in many applications such as the automotive, shipbuilding, and aerospace industries, industrial and architectural design, prosthetics, and many more. This activity gives students the...

Design and make a seed from a newly discovered plant using junk materials.This activity provides an opportunity for creative thinking around the topic of germination and seed dispersal. It also supports the development of literacy and presentation skills. Further ideas...