CP801: Flying High
Abstract
Reference: Case Study CPM 801
Classroom Practice: Year 9 Textiles Technology
Title: Flying High – kite making unit
Duration: Six weeks
Overview: When Textiles Technology was introduced as a new subject in 2003, teacher Sandra Davies faced the challenge of enthusing boys in what many perceived as a female area of interest. Her solution, a Year 9 kite-making unit, has been very popular with the boys and shown them that working with textiles is more than just making clothes.
Focus Points:
Background
St Kentigern College in Pakuranga, Auckland, is a private co-educational Presbyterian school with over 1,600 students. Many of the boys have come through from the single-sex St Kentigern School (Years 1-6).
Students at middle school level (Years 7-10) are taught in single-sex classes, and seniors (Years 11-13) in co-educational classes.
Food Technology and Soft Materials Technology were introduced in 2003, the first year that girls were admitted to the school. A purpose-built Art and Technology block was opened that year to accommodate the extra classes and students. Three boys took on the challenge of the Year 10 Textiles option that first year, and numbers have steadily increased since then.
Textiles Technology teacher Sandra Davies trained in Otago as a Home Economics teacher and has, apart from a break while home with young children, continued in teaching and worked through the many changes in direction in her subject: "There's been a huge number of changes, each one requiring you to come to grips with it, but I am passionate about the advantages of the present Technology curriculum."
Pre-planning
Technology is a compulsory subject for Years 7-9, and offered as options to Years 10-13. Year 9 students have a term each of Electronics and Control, Soft Materials, Food, and Resistant Material Technology, taught in three 45-minute lessons per week.
Teachers in the Technology department are keen to ensure that boys and girls take all the technologies, which means taking some out of their 'comfort zones' and into more non-traditional areas. Enthusing and motivating these students means involving them in work that appeals to their interests.
Sandra's first group of Year 9 boys worked on a zoo project that involved them using technological practice to develop a t-shirt promoting Auckland Zoo. "Some of them got on quite well but most didn't, so I needed to come up with something that would capture boys' attention and motivate them."
After deciding that kite-making would appeal to boys and show them that Textiles is about much more than making clothes, Sandra consulted books and visited an Auckland city kite shop to learn about the process herself.
She introduced her Flying High unit in 2004 and found that the boys "really get into this". It was so successful that she has continued with the unit.
However, she found that the unit required some 'tweaking'. Students designed their own kites, with many working on a traditional cross-shaped frame 'eddy', but getting the framing right proved very time-consuming. Sandra says that the unit got too big for such a short period of time and needed more teacher control of what the students attempted.
Delivery
Before beginning the Flying High unit, the Year 9 boys are introduced to classroom procedures, safety and Technology terminology.
Sandra discusses the need for planning tools and directs students to a planning sheet posted on the school network - all students have laptops and can easily use the school intranet or research on the internet. She revises the class's knowledge of what a brief is and each student then constructs their own initial brief, with links to the issue and the needs and/or opportunities they have identified.
"Planning is a hard thing to teach. It's not just a chart or timeline, but also many other things we can use to guide an outcome, such as diagrams or sketches, trialling or experimenting."
Students are given the constraints on the kites they can make; these include making a delta kite, with a maximum wing-span and a minimum of two colours. Sandra emphasizes the need for balance and symmetry and introduces basic aerodynamics. The Technology department technician, who has a micro-light flying certificate, talks to the boys to reinforce the concepts of aerodynamics.
Sandra discusses the historic element of kites with the class, and finds that sometimes this influences the boys' designs. Other influences come from individual students researching on the internet in preparation for designing their own kites, considering the different sorts of kites around the world and how they are decorated.
Drawing on their knowledge of how and why kites have been used, Sandra poses the question 'What are desirable properties of materials?' Class discussion about what properties are, and their relevance to fitness for purpose of the outcome establishes guidelines for further investigation.
To investigate the desirable material properties for a sail, each group of students is given a variety of fabrics (paper, plastic, cotton, nylon netting, aluminium foil, rugby knit, linen and parka nylon), and evaluates which fabric would give them what they need. They examine each fabric and, based on their discussion of the attributes a kite requires to fly, discuss and record the properties of each fabric and its suitability.
A similar exercise is done with potential framing materials - doweling, plastic conduit, fibreglass and bamboo cane - with students again identifying the properties of materials and noting the positive/negative aspects of each material in terms of making a kite.
This aspect (fabric suitability for fitness for purpose) has been born out of the new Technology curriculum strand Technological Knowledge – Technological Products. Sandra has trialled this application of the new curriculum in 2007, but because this strand was still in draft form she did not assess it.
When the class start developing their concepts they are asked to sketch possible kite ideas, based on a delta kite. They then evaluate their concepts in terms of how well they could meet the brief and the opportunity identified. Sandra reviews knowledge of the design process and students then chose their 'best fit' concept, developing it by changing or adding detail, evaluating and explaining any of their changes.
Students present their final design as a full page drawing, showing all views and the proposed colour, and including their proposed placement of the frame to demonstrate their understanding of aerodynamics. For their brief refinement they add relevant specifications to their briefs, including research findings, identified needs/opportunities and design work.
Sandra reinforces the importance of working drawings, and helps students understand about transference of information through pattern adaptation. Students trace around a basic delta kite template and, using their working drawings, adapt the kite shape to suit their own designs.
Sandra demonstrates the types of seams used for kites and why these are necessary and explains the need for adding seam allowances to a pattern. A separate pattern piece with appropriate seam allowance is made for each colour.
Before the class start assembling their kites, Sandra does a quick 'refresher' lesson and demonstrates skills, such as threading a sewing machine, which might have been forgotten since the previous year. Students are required to make samples of the three seam types used in sail construction –this teaches the techniques required as well as providing machining practice.
The next three weeks are devoted to making the kites. As each student finishes his kite he goes outside for a trial flight then, depending on how well (or even if) the kite flies, returns to the classroom for any modifications. After modifications the kites are retested and when students complete their evaluation against their brief and final design they are asked to comment on, and justify, changes made.
A kite flying competition completes the unit. "When there's no wind and it has to be postponed, they are really disappointed". Awards are presented for the best flying, best decorated and most colourful kite, and the best overall design. Sandra notes that a kite didn't have to be finished to be eligible for best design or most colourful.
Outcomes
The boys have a lot of fun making their kites and flying them in the competition. They also enjoy using equipment such as hacksaws to make the frames, and hammers and eyelets for attaching the flying lines.
The enjoyment and success the boys experience with this work has meant that more are opting to take Textiles as an option in Years 10 and 11.
Sandra comments that the unit has changed considerably over four years. The structure has changed, with a shift of emphasis in some areas. Practical skills have not been compromised but, with a more effective use of class time, technological practice is able to be undertaken in a meaningful way.
What next?
As the basic Flying High unit works well, Sandra says that she will continue using it. "It will continue to evolve as I discover better, different, or more effective ways of teaching the content. I have other ideas that I would like to incorporate into this unit but time is my greatest constraint."
When asked whether the Year 9 girls have expressed interest in making kites, Sandra observes that while the boys are enthusiastic about it the girls remain happy working on a clothing unit, so Flying High will stay with the boys for the present.
Sandra continues to incorporate elements of textiles that particularly appeal to boys and helps disabuse them of the idea that 'textiles' means 'fashion'. Visitors to Sandra's classes, such as a technologist from Doyle Sails, have helped expand student awareness of the larger context of textiles in industry and that all textiles projects have similarities in practice, no matter what the medium.