Inspiration

Source: Things Come Apart, Todd Mclellan

A few years ago I came across photographer Todd Mclellan’s book Things Come Apart, a beautiful visual reflection on the objects around us. His photographs of a disassembled computer, bicycle, typewriter, and according show the intricacy and complexity of the objects. This book inspired me to develop a unit of inquiry around disassembly and exploration of objects, which provides an opportunity for students to think critically about how design decisions of materials and processes impact sustainability.

Concepts

Prior to the activity, students reviewed and explored DP Design Technology content areas such as:

Resources and Reserves and how these impact the material choice and sustainability
Energy utilization and storage and how a product uses energy impacts design choices and how and why batteries may be used
Waste mitigation strategies and these can guide designers into optimizing the sustainability of a product
Design for manufacturing (DfM) and how various strategies such as Design for Assembly (DfA) and Design for Disassembly (DfD) can be utilized by designers to guide the materials, and processes used in producing a design.
Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) as a tool used by designers to assess the impact of a design on sustainability.
Right to Repair principles were examined and discussed.

Taking things apart

By far this was the most engaging part of the inquiry. Over two days students worked in teams to disassemble and document a product. For many, this was the first time disassembling an object. There was a liberating thrill in taking apart an object. These days were filled with lots of “ah-ha” and “wow” moments.

Analyzing and Documenting

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Students used the Ecolizer online LCA tool, made available for free by the Belgian government, to analyze their product and determine a score. Using the score, and the concepts covered earlier, they analyzed their products and presented their analysis in the form of a poster.

To aid and guide their analysis, students organized the content of their poster using a Parts-Purposes-Complexities thinking routine. We use this routine frequently and students are familiar with it as a tool for exploring and organizing knowledge. The Take Apart thinking routine from Agency By Design was also used to structure some of the activities, discussion

Presenting

The A2-size poster format was useful in that it allowed students to practice being concise and specific in their analysis, skills that they need for their Internal Assessment (IA). Students experimented with the layout and graphic design to communicate their knowledge and understanding.

Next steps

One of the challenges we faced were with the calculation of electronic materials. Many of the objects had electronic components (circuit boards, motors, power supplies…) in them. Finding an online LCA calculator that could accurately calculate this was a challenge. As we had just watched The Story of Stuff: The story of electronics, students were keen to address this issue head on.

Determining the specific material was also challenging. Unless a component was specifically labelled with its material, it was difficult to go beyond a broad classification of either glass, metal or plastic. Many educated guesses were made, and the discussion about the importance of labels to aid recycling and repair was valuable and eye-opening.

One of the issues that we have returned to again and again in Grade 9 and Grade 10 design is sustainability. As designers, we have a responsibility to design in a sustainable manner. We are decision makers at critical stages of a product's development, and these decisions have impacts, both predicted and unforeseen.

We've been working on developing units and inquiries that provide opportunities for students to authentically investigate issues of importance. Trying to move beyond just "using sustainable materials", we are interested in empowering our students to think big and act big.

These goals were the impetus for the unit Designing Link You Give A Damn.

Students could choose to inquire into one of four areas:

Access to clean water
Mindfulness
Plastic in our ecosystem
Vaccine delivery

The way this inquiry was structured was also a departure of from typical units:

Students worked in groups during the research stage, but individually in the concept development and design stages
A website was used to deliver content and resources
Inquiry was largely student directed. At this point in their MYP design education (MYP Year 5), they should be able to apply the design cycle to solving problems with minimal support of the teacher

Overall, this unit has had the highest level of student engagement and greatest amount of autonomy. It's been wonderful to see. In discussions with students the feedback focused on the development and refinement of ideas. At this stage in their MYP design journey they had started to use the design cycle as a tool to structure their inquiry, rather than steps they had to write about.

After completing the investigation, we developed posters to present our ideas for critique and feedback.

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SEYOUNG HO - Unit 3_ Individual Portfolio.png

Part of the feedback process involved the students meeting back together in their original group to compare and iterate their next design. This was an exciting step as they reviewed the different directions each of them had gone in and then discussed and iterated a new design based on their inquiry.

The group above came up with a particularly innovative solution for vaccine transport and storage. From left to right: A portable container to keep vaccines at a stable temperature; a large vaccine storage system that is stackable; A shoulder bag that the nurse would wear when traveling to remote areas that contains vaccines, first aid kit, as well as a used needle storage container. In discussion at the board, the group realized their ideas could work together to create a vaccine delivery system. The container would be the key element. The stackable storage would be re-engineered to store the containers for safe and easy access. The shoulder bag would be redesigned to accommodate the containers. It was a pity that this iteration activity took place on the last day of class.

As a teacher, it was great to see students engaged in these kinds of meaningful challenges. The next step is to redefine the challenges for an authentic audience where the designs can be taken even further forward to reality.