Many an interesting Damp;T lesson or project can begin by investigating a collection of products in different ways - for example, focus on who might use the product and how they might use it, or examine how products are made and the materials they are made from, or compare and contrast different styling features.
Collecting products takes time and money- the very things that are in short supply to student teachers. In this case, you should focus a lesson on just one product such as a Kinder Egg.
You can use a Kinder Egg in lots of ways because it is an example of an “added value” product - a chocolate sweet that you eat fairly quickly but has a little toy or game that you can play with for a bit longer.This is a product that is likely to be familiar to many children so you can use it to help develop your pupils’ understanding of what is meant by the terms customer, user and client.
You could go even further, particularly with older or more able pupils, to examine how products are marketed. For example , the image or identity of the Kinder Egg; how it has been achieved and whether the promotion of the product targets a particular age or group.
Get the class to think about the design criteria that might have been used when designing and making the wrapper, the chocolate egg, and the plastic toy. Pupils could apply this knowledge and understanding when undertaking their own design-and-make assignments.
When discussing the materials and manufacturing processes used to make the egg or the toy, you could cover moulds and injection moulding, quality and mass production.
Gina White is an adviser for Damp;T and ICT for The Wirral, Merseyside
