This activity, from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, concentrates on the design of buildings, their use and eco- effectiveness. Students will explore how, through applying circular economy principles, new buildings can be created that have a positive impact – buildings that do good rather than less harm.

The...

This activity, from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, introduces aspects of the circular economy through design-and-make tasks, focusing on food packaging for festivals. It addresses the circular economy principle that waste equals food. The activity provides students with the opportunity to consider mass food...

This activity, from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, follows the format of a ‘Dragon’s Den’ competition. It aims develop student’s understanding of responsible product development and how the principles of the circular economy can be applied to current business practice. Case studies of existing products are...

This design-and-make project, from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, provides hands on experience of working with materials, using CAD/CAM for design, and an opportunity for students to manufacture interesting products while addressing many circular economy concepts.

The activity explores the use of materials...

Biomimicry involves looking at nature for inspiration to solve engineering problems and to develop innovative new designs for products and architecture. This activity, from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, investigates what is meant by linear and closed loops systems and explores products that have been developed by...

This activity, for the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, looks at textiles in fashion design. It provides an opportunity for students to increase their knowledge and understanding of a circular economy approach to developing textiles products and how textile companies are applying this approach to developing new products...

This Nuffield task is to design an emergency shelter, using a 4m x 3m rectangular piece of tent material, to protect three people from wind and rain.

The key processes developed include:

This collection of resources provides classroom presentations and activities to engage students in different types of energy generation. Content covered includes renewable and non renewable energy types, environmental impact and provides examples of different types of power stations around the world.

This one-hour lesson introduces the Internet of Things to students, through the context of fire fighting.

Students explore the user needs of a modern firefighter and how different Internet of Things technologies could improve their...

This resources investigates how electrical energy is generated from renewable and non-renewable sources.

Suggested learning outcomes include:

• To know the difference between a renewable and a non-renewable source of energy.
• To understand how electrical energy is generated from at least...

In this challenge, students are asked to consider the impact of people suffering from heart conditions, both to the individual and to wider society. They then generate ideas for using programmable systems to improve people’s health, and to monitor themselves. A video introduces the idea of a heart rate monitor, and...

This collection of resources looks at the Life Cycle Analysis of a mobile phone. Included in this resource are the student worksheets. teacher notes and a presentation.

These materials, from Waste Watch (part of Keep Britain Tidy), have been developed to make explicit links between sustainability and packaging for students following GCSE level design and technology courses. The scheme of learning includes suggested activities for five active learning sessions, supported by the...

Inspired by the Born to Engineer video from Faye Banks, an engineer who works on the UK electrical network, this resource supports students to increase their understanding of engineering and the design decisions that electrical engineers have to make when creating a new electrical network.

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