Designing Phones of the Future

Designing Phones of the Future

Lesson 3 of 3 in this unit

  • Primary
  • Year 5 - 6
  • Science
  • Humanities and Social Sciences
  • Business and Economics
  • Technology
  • Design and Technologies
  • Environmental
  • Recycling
  • Sustainability
  • Economic
  • Design Thinking
  • Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure
  • ...

Lesson summary

This lesson is part of a unit that explores how electricity and processed materials combine to power mobile phones. In this lesson, students design a sustainable mobile phone of the future. In teams, students develop and pitch their ideas, and are scored on various criteria, including their phone’s sustainability.

Learning intentions:

Students will...

  • understand the environmental impact of mobile phone production
  • explore innovative, sustainable design solutions for future mobile phones.

Success criteria:

Students can...

  • design a sustainable mobile phone concept that addresses specific environmental issues identified in the lesson
  • present a clear and engaging pitch that effectively communicates the benefits and feasibility of the redesigned phone
  • evaluate the sustainability and creativity of different phone redesigns using a scoring rubric.

Lesson guides and printables

Lesson Plan
Student Worksheet
Teacher Content Info
Visual Explainer

Curriculum links

Select your curriculum from the options below.

Lesson details

Skills

This lesson is designed to build students’ competencies in the following skills:

  • collaboration
  • communication
  • enterprise
  • ethical understanding
  • global citizenship
  • leadership
  • problem solving

Curriculum Mapping

Australian Curriculum (v9.0) content descriptions

Year 5 & 6 Design and Technology:

  • explain how people in design and technology occupations consider competing factors including sustainability in the design of products, services and environments (AC9TDE6K01)
  • explain how electrical energy can be transformed into movement, sound or light in a product or system (AC9TDE6K02)
  • explain how characteristics and properties of materials, systems, components, tools and equipment affect their use when producing designed solutions. (AC9TDE6K05)

Year 5 Humanities and Social Sciences:

  • types of resources, including natural, human and capital, and how they satisfy needs and wants. (AC9HS5K08)

Year 6 Humanities and Social Sciences:

  • influences on consumer choices and strategies that can be used to help make informed personal consumer and financial choices. (AC9HS6K08)

Relevant parts of Years 5 & 6 achievement standards: 

Year 5 & 6 Design and Technology: Students can explain how people design products, services and environments to meet the needs of communities, including sustainability. Students can explain how the features of technologies impact on design decisions and they create designed solutions.

Year 5 Humanities and Social Sciences: Students can explain the nature of resources, and how they meet needs and wants.

Year 6 Humanities and Social Sciences: Students can explain influences on consumers and strategies for informed consumer and financial choices.

NSW Syllabus outcomes: GE3-3

General capabilities: Critical and Creative Thinking, Personal and Social Capability

Cross-curriculum priority: Sustainability 

Level of teacher scaffolding: Medium – facilitate discussion and group work.

UN Sustainable Development Goals

UN SDG 12: Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns 

  • Target 12.5: By 2030, substantially reduce waste generation through prevention, reduction, recycling and reuse.

Resources Required

  • Student Worksheets – one copy per student
  • Device capable of presenting a video to the class

Additional info

This lesson has been developed as part of Planet Ark’s National Recycling Week. Following this lesson plan is an ideal way for your school to take part in MobileMuster. You’ll be joining thousands of amazing teachers in making a difference and creating positive environmental change. Take part in the Schools Recycling Right Challenge for Planet Ark’s National Recycling Week. Register your lesson or other activities today!

Related Professional Learning

How to Teach Sustainability with Hope

Quick Summary: This course is for both primary and secondary teachers of all subjects, but especially for English, Science, Humanities and Geography teachers who are covering climate change and the cross-curriculum priority of sustainability.

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