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Home & School Projects
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New Inventions – Learning Guide
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How can we creatively use science and technology to solve life's problems?
SchoolNet children become inventors and creatively apply science and technology to solve some fascinating lifestyle and environmental problems.
Children are creating a wonderful compendium of ideas and inventions, ranging from fanciful fun designs to sophisticated practical inventions. They are going through a process of Design, Build and Test to see how their inventions might really work.
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1. How to get started
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Ask your children to think and talk about:- What could you invent that would improve people's lifestyle or environment?
- How could you wake teenagers in the morning, grow food on a long space trip, design a computer for the future, generate electricity on a life raft, get wheelchairs up and down stairs, help people with visual impairment to find their way around school, design an automatic dog wash?
- Design an invention that will solve a real life problem.
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2. How to choose the focus of study
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Children could identify an issue that affects themselves, their friends, family or other members of their community. Encourage children to think about: - what is the real need, or cause of the problem?
- are there several different solutions that you could invent?
- which is the best solution and why?
- what will the cost be?
- what materials will you need to make your invention and where will these come from?
- who will make your invention? Will it be a one-off, or will you make lots in a factory?
- will you give your invention away, sell it, or use it yourself? Who would buy it and how much would they pay for it?
- how will your invention make the world a better place?
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3. How to organise the practicalities
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This activity can be taken to any stage, whether children simply create the concept of their inventions, or actually go through the entire design and build process and end up with a working object or scale model. If you are planning to do the latter, you may wish to pre-select a topic for children to focus on in order to ensure you have sufficient materials available for creating models or working prototypes.
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4. How to ensure child safety
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SchoolNet Global is a safe, mediated environment, where children are protected from unsuitable material. All work is checked by SchoolNet Global mediators prior to publication. By following the SchoolNet Global Safety Guidelines, you can ensure that your children have fun and learn in safety.
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5. The 5 Steps to Cyberspace
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The SchoolNet Global publishing process takes children through easy steps to publishing their work to the world:
1. Find Out
The child chooses a project and undertakes research.
2. Sort
The child collates, organises, interprets and edits their data and decides how to present it to an Internet audience.
3. Create
Children can create their text in any wordprocessing package then copy and paste into their web page template. Simply click to add images saved on your own computer.
4. Check
Children check what they have written and ensure they have permission from interviewees to publish their work.
5. Show
Children submit their work for publication to the Internet. Work is approved by the child's teacher or parent and by SchoolNet Global mediators prior to publication. Within a few days, their completed pages will be published in the SchoolNet Global Gallery for the world to see.
5 Steps to Cyberspace
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6. How children gather and organise information
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Children could follow some or all of these steps to create their inventions:- Research
- Plan
- Draw
- Design
- List resources
- Make prototype
- Evaluate
- Refine
- Draw refined design
- Make finished design
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7. Extension activities
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More able children could carry out in-depth studies, for example:- Children could look more deeply at the science involved and do experiments to test the effectiveness of their inventions and refine their designs to optimise them.
- Children could make working models, animations, or the actual solution if appropriate.
- Children could work together to build each other's inventions. This may require children to create detailed specifications and plans for each other to follow. They could come together to evaluate the prototype products and make any refinements.
- Children could search SchoolNet Global for other inventions addressing their problem and build or model or suggest improvements or alterations to the design.
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8. Online investigations
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The SchoolNet Global Gallery contains a wealth of information on worldwide cultures and traditions, written by children all over the world. Searching through these pages provides a good starting point for any new investigation.
SEARCH New Inventions
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New Inventions
