Value judgements evaluating design

Cover 1Design and Technology in the curriculum Design and Technology in the primary school, as in the secondary, aims to foster the development of these fundamental human characteristics. A little known but interesting work by Evans, A Case of Primary School Technology (1983), explored the applicability of the 'Project Technology'1 approach to primary schools. Functional devices, on the other hand, are inescapably open to objective evaluation; the functional question being does the device perform the intended function? Children are making apparent the quality of their thinking and their value judgements, through modelling - conceptually and physically - objects and systems that meet human needs. The uniqueness of technology education lies in the means of validating that thinking.