From the middle of spring until early winter thousands of unwanted newborn kittens are handed into the SPCA. This Connected article covers how students at Sir Douglas Bader School in Auckland responded to a challenge from the SPCA for a device to help comfort and feed newborn kittens.
This article covers:
- kittens’ early development
- the level of care required
- design, prototyping, modelling, assembling the final products and refining the prototype
- collaboration with a product development engineer from Fisher & Paykel Healthcare
- further ideas.
Key ideas
Some of the key ideas covered in this article:
- Technology – the design cycle and the design brief criterea
- Nature of science – to help them make decisions, scientists look for reliable evidence and consider what other scientists have found out
- Science – requirements of a kitten: nourishment, warmth and shelter.
Check your school library for the article from the 2020 level 4 Connected journal Feeling the Heat, download it as a Google slide presentation from Tāhūrangi or order it from the Ministry of Education.
The teacher support material (TSM) can be downloaded from Tāhūrangi (Word and PDF files available).
There are two learning activities that support the exploring technology aspects of the New Zealand Curriculum:
- Furthering the feline-fostering designs
- Responding to a need.
Related content
Explore the range of resources we have under our innovation topic, start with this article that introduces some of our key resources.
Read about the efforts of South Auckland school students to discover the ideal home for tree wētā in the article Redesigning wētā houses. Engineers from Fisher & Paykel Healthcare were also involved in this project
Use these activities to start innovative thinking in the classroom:
Check out our entire range of Connected articles here. We’ve curated them by topic and concepts.
Useful link
The Connected journals can be ordered from the Down the Back of the Chair website. Access to these resources is restricted to Ministry-approved education providers. To find out if you are eligible for a login or if you have forgotten your login details, contact their customer services team on 0800 660 662 or email orders@thechair.education.govt.nz.
Acknowledgement
The Connected series is published annually by the Ministry of Education, New Zealand.
