Sixth-Grade Students as Sustainable Town Designers

Abstract

Abstract This article reports on a 6th-grade society-centred design activity, where students designed a new sustainable town with the goal of at least 50% renewable energy sources. The activity addressed both learning about and learning through design, together with designing for new directions. Through a case study methodology, students’ learning about design was apparent in their iterative processes of problem scoping, idea generation and modification, balancing of benefits and trade-offs, and reflections on and improvements of design features. Disciplinary content knowledge and applications emerged as students worked with renewable energy data and community needs, applied spatial reasoning in positioning town features, and considered budgetary constraints in reaching their “best” design. Students’ responses to how they applied mathematics and science included using the grid coordinates in their planning, meeting given constraints and conditions, coordinating the various town features, using properties of renewable energy sources, and taking into account the nature of the landscape. Reference to empathy and aesthetics were included in the students’ responses. Their design critiques revealed how they could identify positive and negative aspects of their own and their peers’ designs.