Year 5s Put Design Thinking into Practice
- July 3, 2020
Design Thinking is a creative process that helps you to design meaningful solutions.
You generate a ton of ideas, build and test prototypes, and share what you’ve designed, eventually, you’ll come up with a useful solution.
The Year 5 girls have been learning this way of thinking in their Design Technology classes. They started by defining the problem. The next stage is the Ideate Phase, where they form as many ideas as they can as possibilities for solutions to the problems. No idea is silly, all ideas are an option, and the more creative the better.
The ideas the girls came up with were so diverse, including: an automatic feeding and watering system, for one of the girls’ grandparents’ chickens; a handbag with an alarm to scare off ducks, for those who are afraid of ducks in the park; a cover for people with moon boots, so they can shower; there were apps for various problems; machines that could help find lost things; and a wheelchairs with attachments for broken legs, to name a few.
What the girls thought
“The Make Phase was most helpful for my process because I had help from my partner, I could use the prototype to help and that made it easier to do.” Rebecca Schirmer
“I felt the Test Phase was most helpful for me because I loved visualising the prototype over and over again, until I got the best idea possible. Jade was my test person and advised me to make some elements more realistic, so it helped me adjust my design.” Maddie Smith
“The Prototype Phase was most helpful to me because I was able to think about the necessary parts of my design as I drew my design.” Summer Golding
The girls loved the experience and finished the unit sharing their processes with members of the class through presentations.
Author: Santa Maria College
Santa Maria College is a vibrant girls school with a growing local presence and reputation. Our Mission is to educate young Mercy women who act with courage and compassion to enrich our world. Santa Maria College is located in Attadale in Western Australia, 16 km from the Perth CBD. We offer a Catholic education for girls in Years 5 – 12 and have 1300 students, including 152 boarders.