AC9TDE10K06 – Year 9 Technologies: Technologies context: Materials and technologies specialisations

This Content Descriptor from Year 9 Technologies provides the specific knowledge and skills students should learn. Use it to plan lessons, create learning sequences, and design assessments that align with the Australian Curriculum v9.

Elaborations

• • analysing how First Nations Australians identified the superior thermal properties of possum fur in their development of products such as cloaks and blankets including making judgements on how these fibres are sourced, and how these knowledges continue to be used today as seen in the emerging market of high-performance thermal clothing made from blended possum and wool fibre
• • critiquing the design of an existing product to identify environmental consequences of material selection and investigating emerging materials and their impact on design decisions, for example examining the properties of common plastic bags and researching innovative materials that could be used as a sustainable alternative such as bioplastics or renewable materials such as seaweed
• • justifying decisions when selecting from a broad range of technologies − tools, equipment, processes, materials, systems and components, for example selecting low-emission paints and locally sourced materials such as bamboo for cross-laminated timbers (CLT)
• • analysing and explaining the ways in which the properties and characteristics of materials have been considered in the design of a product with specific requirements, such as minimising weight to reduce transport costs in rural Australia
• • investigating emerging materials and their impact on design decisions, for example researching products such as sustainable bioplastic material made from discarded potato peels which can be used for a variety of applications including buttons and eyeglasses
• • investigating fibre-based medical textile products and structures used in a medical environment for treatment of an injury or the clinical treatment of a wound or an illness, for example collagen fibre used as a suture is as strong as silk and biodegradable
• • investigating soft robotics including nanomaterials which enable them to function like human muscles

Achievement Standard This Supports

This Content Descriptor contributes to the following Achievement Standard: