Survey application: put the analysis to work
Ākonga apply what the survey established to a bounded design problem, choosing their approach from the evidence gathered across the unit.
- Applied Survey move: Design decision justified from earlier lessons' evidence
- Evidence it produces: A proposal citing at least two specific findings from the survey
Lesson at a Glance | He Tirohanga Whakamua
Ngā Whāinga Ako | Learning Intentions
Students will know
- That a design brief is not just a description of what to make — it is a specification of the context (who is affected, where, under what constraints), the criteria for success, and the kaitiakitanga obligations the design carries.
- That a prototype does not need to be functional — it needs to make the design concrete enough that its properties, trade-offs, and limitations can be examined and discussed by others.
- That peer review using a shared framework (LCA-kaitiakitanga) produces more reliable feedback than general opinion — because it forces the reviewer to apply the same evaluative lens the designer used, and name specific evidence for their conclusions.
Students will demonstrate
- By completing a design brief that names: the domain, the specific context (rohe, stakeholders, constraints), at least two LCA criteria the design must satisfy, and at least one kaitiakitanga obligation the design must honour.
- By producing a prototype or detailed design specification that makes the solution concrete — sketch, diagram, materials list and process flow, or digital mockup.
- By completing a peer review of another student's design that names one LCA or kaitiakitanga strength and one specific gap, supported by evidence from the prototype or specification.
Do Now | Tīmatanga Whakaaro (8 min)
Display on the board — 5 minutes individual journal review, 3 minutes pair share:
"Look back through your Design Journal entries from Lessons 11–18. Which domain question still feels most unresolved — the one where your entry said 'I don't know' or 'this needs more'? That is your design brief."
The Design Journal has been building a record of each student's genuine intellectual encounter with each technology domain. An "unresolved" entry is not a failure — it is an invitation. The best design briefs come from questions that the student couldn't fully answer in analysis, because they require a concrete solution to test.
Teacher note: If a student's Design Journal is sparse, they can use the "unresolved question" from any lesson — the synthesis activity in that lesson, or the exit claim where they named a limitation. The brief does not have to come from the journal entry — but the journal is the most direct route to genuine student interest. Students who find themselves drawn to multiple domains can be guided: which domain's problem affects people they know, or a place they know? Proximity to the problem tends to produce better design work.
Domain options (from Lessons 11–18): E-waste and product life cycle · Indigenous design principles · Renewable energy systems · Sustainable materials · Energy efficiency and standby power · Smart cities and transport · Water technology · Food systems and agritech. Students may also work across domains if their design brief genuinely spans them (e.g. a food production system with a water management component).
Step 1: Define Your Brief | Tuhia Tō Kaupeka (10 min)
A brief that says "design something sustainable" produces undirected work. A brief that names the specific context, constraint, and obligation produces focused, evaluable design. Complete the brief template below before beginning the prototype.
Design Brief Template
From the eight domain options (L11–L18). Name the technology area your design addresses.
Who is affected? Where? What are the physical, economic, and cultural constraints? (e.g. "A marae in Tāmaki Makaurau with limited capital budget, significant roof area, and a community obligation to reduce power bills.")
One sentence: "Current [system/product] causes [specific harm/limitation] for [specific people/place/ecology], and I am designing [proposed solution] to address it."
From: energy use, water use, land use, materials (embodied carbon), end-of-life recyclability, emissions. Be specific: "Energy use: my design must use less than X kWh per year compared to the current system."
One obligation your design carries to the land, water, community, or ecology it is embedded in. Who are the kaitiaki of this domain, and what would they require of your design?
Brief quality check: Can someone else read your brief and understand clearly what your design will do, for whom, and how they would know if it had succeeded? If the brief is still vague after completing the template, tighten the context — the more specific the context, the more focused the design work.
Step 2: Pre-Prototype LCA-Kaitiakitanga Audit (8 min)
Before spending time building a prototype, evaluate your approach against the dual framework. This surface things you may need to design around — not just around the intended benefits, but around the trade-offs and gaps.
LCA audit (pre-prototype)
Manufacturing stage: What materials and energy are needed to make your design? Where do they come from and what is their carbon footprint?
Use stage: How much energy and water does your design consume in daily operation? Who operates it and what maintenance does it need?
End of life: What happens to your design after its useful life? Can it be recycled, composted, or repaired? What becomes waste?
Kaitiakitanga audit (pre-prototype)
Who wasn't asked? Who has mana over the land, water, or ecology your design will interact with — and have they been consulted?
What relationship does it create? Does your design put users in more or less relationship with the ecological system it's embedded in?
Intergenerational legacy: In 30 years, will this design have helped or harmed the environment it was designed for? What would a future kaitiaki say about it?
If the pre-prototype audit reveals a serious gap: Adjust the design approach before building the prototype. A design that fails on a fundamental LCA or kaitiakitanga criterion and then gets built is harder to fix than a design that is adjusted before prototyping begins.
Step 3: Build Your Prototype | Hanga I Tō Tauira (20 min)
What counts as a prototype?
A prototype makes the design concrete — it is something that can be examined, measured, and critiqued. It does not need to function. Choose the form that best suits your design:
A labelled technical drawing showing the system components, flow paths, and scale. Suitable for infrastructure designs (water systems, energy systems, transport).
A structured document naming materials, dimensions, energy requirements, installation process, maintenance schedule, and cost estimate. Suitable for product or system redesigns.
A visual map of the relationships in the system — who the stakeholders are, what flows (energy, water, materials, money), and where the intervention changes the system. Suitable for complex social-technical systems.
A three-dimensional object made from available materials (cardboard, foam, found materials) that represents the design at scale. Suitable for physical product designs or building-scale interventions.
Minimum requirements for all prototype types:
- The prototype must be labelled — someone unfamiliar with your brief should be able to understand what the design is and how it works.
- At least one annotation must reference the LCA criteria from your brief: "This component uses X material because it has lower embodied carbon than Y."
- At least one annotation must reference the kaitiakitanga obligation from your brief: "This placement respects the rāhui on the northern shoreline — the system draws from the southern inlet only."
- The prototype must be shareable — your peer reviewer needs to be able to examine it without you explaining everything verbally.
Step 4: Peer Review | Arotake Hoa (8 min)
Peer Review Protocol — LCA-Kaitiakitanga Framework
Exchange your prototype and brief with a partner. Read the brief carefully, then examine the prototype for 3–4 minutes without asking questions. Then complete this review form.
Summarise the brief in your own words. If you can't — the brief needs more clarity.
Name one specific way the design reduces environmental harm across the life cycle. Point to the evidence in the prototype or specification.
Name one LCA stage (manufacturing / use / end of life) where the design hasn't addressed environmental harm. What specific question would you want answered?
Does the design honour the kaitiakitanga obligation stated in the brief? Is there evidence for this in the prototype? Name one thing the kaitiaki of this domain might still question.
After the review: Share your review with the designer verbally (2 minutes). Focus on the specific evidence — "I see this addresses water use, but I couldn't find how you handle the end-of-life disposal of the tank" is more useful than "it was good overall."
📓 Design Journal — Entry 19: What Peer Review Revealed
Write 3–4 sentences responding to this prompt:
"What did your peer reviewer see that you couldn't see yourself — in the LCA analysis or the kaitiakitanga obligation? Why couldn't you see it? And what would you change in the design if you had more time?"
The most important part of peer review is not the positive feedback — it is the gap that the reviewer found. If your reviewer couldn't identify any gap, reflect on whether your brief was precise enough to surface one. A design with no visible gaps usually has an invisible one — and finding it before the Lesson 20 showcase is the point.
Kaiako Planning | Ngā Tūāhu Whakaaro
📋 Curriculum Alignment
This lesson is the direct application of the NZ Curriculum Technology strand: Technological Practice — Brief Development and Planning (defining a brief with context and criteria); Technological Practice — Outcome Development and Evaluation (prototype production and evaluation against criteria). The peer review protocol develops the Key Competency: Participating and Contributing — using a shared framework to support another's design thinking.
Assessment note: This lesson is the natural formative assessment point for the unit. The brief + prototype + peer review together provide evidence of: brief development competency (Technology), systems thinking (Science/Social Sciences), and cultural competency in applying kaitiakitanga as a genuine design criterion rather than a box to tick.
📦 Materials & Resources
- Student Design Journals (essential — students need all eight entries from Lessons 11–18)
- Prototype materials: A3 paper, pencils, pens, rulers for diagrams; cardboard, scissors, tape for physical models
- Printed brief templates (or projectable for students to copy into journals)
- Printed peer review forms (one per student pair)
- Timer or visible countdown for prototype session (20 min goes fast)
Optional digital tools: Google Slides or Canva for system map prototypes; Google Docs for design specifications. Digital prototypes are valid — they just need to be shareable within the class without wifi dependency.
🔄 Differentiation
For students who need more support: Provide a worked example brief (completed template for a school rainwater harvesting system) and a worked example diagram prototype. Students can use these as a model while developing their own. The worked example also helps during peer review — reviewers can benchmark against a known example.
For students working at pace: Challenge them to develop a second iteration prototype that responds to the peer review — what would the design look like if the gap their reviewer identified was addressed? Two-iteration design is significantly stronger for the Lesson 20 showcase.
For students with strong te reo Māori: Encourage them to identify the specific iwi or hapū kaitiaki for their design context — not just "Māori" generically, but the specific people with mana over that land, water, or ecology. This specificity strengthens the kaitiakitanga criterion in their brief.
⏭️ Next Lesson Connection
Lesson 20 (Capstone Showcase) is the public-facing culmination of the unit. Students will share their designs (prototype + brief + peer review response) with an audience — ideally parents, school community, or a genuine external stakeholder. The most important preparation for Lesson 20 is completing the peer review in this lesson and acting on the feedback: the peer review gap identified today should be visibly addressed (or explicitly acknowledged as a design limitation) in the showcase presentation.