When you rely on toys with parts that are difficult to identify, separate, or replace, one damaged component can make the entire toy unusable. Frequent replacement strains family and community budgets, consumes additional materials and energy, and sends more plastic, metal, and electronic waste to landfills in New Orleans and beyond.
Challenge Question
How might we redesign broken toys so that families and staff at a New Orleans family resource center can repair them affordably, reduce waste, and avoid buying replacements?
Standards
[Next Generation Science Standards] 3-5-ETS1-1 - Define a simple design problem reflecting a need or a want that includes specified criteria for success and constraints on materials, time, or cost.
[Next Generation Science Standards] 3-5-ETS1-2 - Generate and compare multiple possible solutions to a problem based on how well each is likely to meet the criteria and constraints of the problem.
[Next Generation Science Standards] 3-5-ETS1-3 - Plan and carry out fair tests in which variables are controlled and failure points are considered to identify aspects of a model or prototype that can be improved.
[Next Generation Science Standards] 5-PS1-3 - Make observations and measurements to identify materials based on their properties.
Competencies
Collaboration - Students co-design projects with peers, exercise shared-decision making, strengthen relational agency, resolve conflict, and assume leadership roles.
Critical Thinking & Problem Solving - Students consider a variety of innovative approaches to address and understand complex questions that are authentic and important to their communities.
Content Expertise - Students develop key competencies, skills, and dispositions with ample opportunities to apply knowledge and engage in work that matters to them.
Effective Communication - Students practice listening to understand, communicating with empathy, and share their learning through exhibiting, presenting and reflecting on their work.
Self Directed Learning - Students use teacher and peer feedback and self-reflection to monitor and direct their own learning while building self knowledge both in and out of the classroom.
Learning Partners and Clients
A New Orleans family resource center will serve as the client, sharing its needs for safe, durable, affordable toys that reduce replacement costs and waste. Fixit Clinic can coach students to locate failure points, diagnose damage, and design replaceable parts that families can repair with low-cost materials and common tools. The Preservation Resource Center of New Orleans can connect students with repair-minded makers, guide responsible material reuse, and help test whether prototype parts are easy and inexpensive to separate and replace.
Phase Overview
Phase
Key Experiences
Discover
I can investigate a safely prepared broken toy and interview New Orleans family resource center staff to identify why toys are discarded and how repairable parts could reduce waste and replacement costs.
Examine
I can observe and measure toy materials to identify properties that affect durability, safety, repairability, cost, and environmental impact. I can learn from Fixit Clinic and Preservation Resource Center of New Orleans partners how to locate failure points, reuse materials, and make parts easier and less expensive to replace. I can compare repair solutions against criteria and constraints for materials, time, affordability, waste reduction, and family usability.
Engineer
I can develop, as a product designer, an affordable repairable toy prototype and family-friendly repair plan with identifiable, separable, and replaceable parts, reused or low-waste materials, a labeled diagram, and step-by-step instructions.
Do
I can conduct fair tests with controlled variables and collect data from resource center staff and repair partners to evaluate durability, ease of repair, replacement cost, and the amount of waste prevented.
Share
I can share my prototype, repair plan, learning journey, and what I learned about myself through an interactive repair demonstration showing families, resource center staff, peers, and New Orleans repair partners how the solution can reduce waste and replacement costs.
