Teacher Preparation

Students will...

... understand why upcycling can improve the recycling loop
... create a furniture solution to address a need identified by another student.

Students can...

... choose and justify a design and features for a piece of furniture made from cardboard
… experiment with and apply construction techniques to create their piece of furniture
... critically evaluate and reflect on their work.

Make the learning intentions and success criteria visible to students throughout this lesson.

Teacher content information: What do you do with the cardboard you no longer need? Most of us are used to putting cardboard straight into the recycling bin (go us!) so that it can be recycled and turned into new cardboard. But what if we could re-imagine the cardboard packaging that we use as a material that can be used to make art, craft, instruments, homewares and even furniture?

Thinking about how we can use an object in a completely new way is called 'upcycling'. Unlike recycling, upcycling does not break the product down to its raw materials for repurposing. Instead, it transforms the existing materials into something else.

Thinking of ways to upcycle materials like cardboard is a great way to shift our thinking about what we should do with these materials. Even if we recycle materials, recycling uses energy and resources in terms of production processes and transportation. Upcycling reduces the number of resources and energy consumed to keep using cardboard. It also means you are making something that you might have to buy instead; this saves you money and means you are not using more natural resources to create a new object.

Upcycling is a way to re-think, re-imagine and re-manufacture our resources; to ignore this would be a wasted opportunity.

Information about Visy: This activity has been developed in partnership with Visy. For over 70 years Visy has been committed to finding sustainable solutions for Australia’s recyclables and helping to reduce material sent to landfill. Visy collects, receives and sorts paper, cardboard, glass, plastics, steel and aluminium from households, businesses and schools with the purpose of reusing these products in the re-manufacture of new packaging products.

Information about Design Thinking: The Design Thinking approach is one used by designers to generate new ideas to solve problems. It involves conducting research, developing ideas, prototyping and refining ideas to produce a solution valued by the people who will be using it (end users).

While the actual terminology varies, the Design Thinking process typically cycles through the following stages:

Empathise: Develop an understanding of the challenge and research
Define: Synthesise and interpret information and develop the problem statement
Research: Find out the theories and thinking experts in this space are currently investigating or implementing
Ideate: Develop and refine ideas in response to the problems/issues identified
Prototype: Create prototypes, gather feedback, evaluate and re-prototype
Test: Implement and reflect upon changed ideas, track change and continue to develop.

In this lesson, students will have the chance to follow all the Design Thinking steps to produce their own upcycled cardboard furniture for use in the classroom.

More information about the stages of Design Thinking can be found here.

Want to know more about teaching using Design Thinking? Check out the Introduce Primary Students to Design Thinking online Professional Development course!

Teaching Sequence

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

5-10 minutes - Tune In
40 minutes - Find Out and Take Action
5 minutes – Reflection

Tune In

Step 1.

Option 1 - Where students have completed this lesson, you can remind them of:

this video about the cardboard nightstand
the design thinking process observed in the video (use this image)
the mini side table that they made.

Option 2 - Where students haven’t completed this lesson, you can invite them to:

watch this video (until 5:23) and talk about what you noticed in the video
view this image about the design thinking process and how it applies to the design process in the video.

Step 2.

Explain to students that they will create their own piece of upcycled cardboard furniture using the design thinking process.

Find Out and Take Action

1. Empathise Phase

Step 1.

Students will now start their own design thinking process around upcycling cardboard. This upcycling project will have two main benefits:

environmental benefits (to reduce the resource and energy costs associated with creating and recycling cardboard)
to benefit students in some way.

But before we start designing or even thinking about what we might design, we must understand the audience we are designing for. Meeting the audience's needs is an essential part of an effective design. Students will need to understand the needs of the people using their upcycled design - in this case, this will be someone in their class!

Students will need to ask their partners:

in what ways are you uncomfortable in the classroom?

Using the Student Design Workbook, students complete an analysis of the ways their user is uncomfortable in the classroom. They can do this by asking questions and recording them in the Student Design Workbook.

It should be pretty easy to empathise with this person, as they're probably very similar to the student themselves!

Finally, students can summarise the user's needs in two or three sentences.

2. Define Phase

Step 1.

Now that we have a good understanding of our users let's think about some of their challenges, and how we could design a solution for them. This will help students focus their creativity.

If the problem isn't understood with regard to how it works or affects people, then the solutions students develop will not adequately address the needs of the people they are trying to help.

Step 2.

Students will now create a problem statement. The main purpose of the problem statement is to identify and explain the problem concisely yet in clear detail, including where the problem occurs, who is impacted and what impact it has on them.

Using the Student Design Workbook, students define these points.

Who: Who is this problem affecting? (This is the user we have just defined above.)
Where: Where is the problem occurring?
What is the impact: What happens to the user when encountering this problem?

Step 3.

Students will create three problem statements. Even if they have a pretty clear idea of where to focus their design, expanding our horizons and seeing if inspiration strikes us in a different area is still useful.

For example:

the chairs in the classroom are too high and uncomfortable
there isn’t enough space on the desk to store all the books, pencil case and water bottle - something is always getting knocked onto the floor!
it would be handy to have my book box and other things closer to my desk, so I could grab things when needed.

Extension:

Students could write this information as a short persuasive text that explains and justifies the need for a solution to this problem. This could be used to satisfy the literacy general capability for this lesson.
Consider allowing students to visit other classes in small groups and run a qualitative survey to gather data about audiences in other classes; this could include teachers and students in different segments. This could be used to satisfy the numeracy general capability for this lesson.

3. Research Phase - Optional - If time permits, you could work with students to complete this phase

Step 1.

In this phase, students investigate the theories and thinking experts in this space are currently investigating or implementing. This:

inspires student thinking and guides their investigation towards helpful ideas
helps students to develop a thorough understanding of how concepts and pre-existing solutions in this space function and how to implement them effectively
informs students of the known problems, challenges and constraints inherent in these solutions.

You could make this step as detailed as you like, depending on time. Students could either:

spend 5 minutes looking for inspirational images online and sharing what they find with a partner, or
spend an extended period researching the objects people have constructed out of cardboard and recording images and text about these creations to share in a presentation.

By the end of this stage, students will have a clear picture of what works and what doesn't to overcome the challenges presented by the problem statement from the define phase.

4. Ideation and Prototype Phase

Step 1.

Students can now start planning their designs. We suggest that you try to direct students to simple ideas such as a side table, a small set of shelves or a footstool.

The Student Design Workbook will guide them through the ideation steps, including:

sketches of the design, including labels and measurements (encourage students to measure the space they are designed for to make sure their design fits)
the area their design needs to fit into (i.e. how much space is there under or next to their desk)
how much cardboard they have to work with
the structure of the cardboard they are working with (i.e. are some cardboards thicker than others, how do bends in the cardboard affect the strength of the cardboard, and how can you strengthen a piece of cardboard by using other bits of cardboard?)
the types of adhesives will work best with the cardboard they have to work with - Single-material objects, i.e., made out of cardboard only, are much easier to recycle or recover than objects made of multiple materials, so if students need to use adhesives or other materials encourage them to use those that can easily be removed from the cardboard, and that can be recycled themselves.
can their design be used beyond their own classroom and in other rooms at the school?
could this design also be used at home at the end of the school year?
once the object is no longer useful, what can be done with the materials?
how does the design fulfill the goals of this project? (i.e. it upcycles cardboard and addresses a need identified by another student.)

Step 2.

Then - just like in the video watched by students in the previous lesson - students will create a scale model of their design using thin cardboard. They should also use this as an opportunity to test different adhesives.

Extension:

If students can access individual devices, they could photograph their models and label them using various programs. This will satisfy the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Capability general capability for this lesson.
They could also test their design by placing items of relative height and weight to those intended in the final, larger design (e.g. how much space on a shelf would they need to hold a water bottle and pencil case: if their prototype is ⅛ of the final design size, can they create a water bottle and pencil case that is also ⅛ of its actual size to test on the shelf? If they had made a footstool, how might they use a similar calculation to test foot weight?). This could be used to satisfy the numeracy general capability for this lesson.

Step 3.

Based on their prototype and tests, students could then create the final design. These can be shared with the classmate they are designed for, and opportunities for feedback could be provided.

Reflection

5. Evaluation phase

Students swap their Design Workbook with a partner and fill out the feedback rubric for their partner's design.

Differentiated Learning

Extension: There are several extension points throughout this lesson. See the call-out boxes above for these points in context with the lesson.

Provisions for Learning Support: Some students may need support throughout the design process. Consider giving these students additional time to plan out their design. Students with motor impairments may require support in constructing their designs. As each student will have unique requirements, review these requirements and consider strategies for support in line with any individual support plan.

Take it further

Some other upcycled cardboard projects you could share with your students:

Cardboard arts - https://www.upcyclist.co.uk/2018/05/recycled-cardboard-art/
Cardboard crafts and homewares - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VN9Lezlm3RU
Cardboard homewares - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbRgxOS80c8
Cardboard guitar - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Oo2H-W7d6A
Cardboard surfboard - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4Qs7CXYlIs

Teacher Reflection

Take this opportunity to reflect on your own teaching:

What did you learn about your teaching today?
What worked well?
What didn't work so well?
What would you share?
Where to next?
How are you going to get there?

Visy Education - Designed Solutions for Upcycling Cardboard

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