Cow Power - Curriculum Links
Nature of Technology Strand
Characteristics of Technology (Explanatory Paper)
- Technology is a purposeful intervention-by-design human activity that results in technological outcomes that impact on the world.
- Technology enhances the capability of humans to transform materials, energy and information.
- Technology uses and produces technological knowledge which is validated in the successful development of a technological outcome.
- Technology is historically positioned and inseparable from social and cultural influences and impacts.
- Contemporary Technological Practice is increasingly collaborative and inter-disciplinary.
Focus Questions
- Discuss the purposeful nature of the development by examining the potential impact of large-scale adoption of this technology. [Local impacts could relate to the individual farmers and the immediate community; at a national and global level, economic and environmental sustainability issues could be among those considered.]
- Material and energy transformation is key to the effective functioning of the BioGenCool™ system. Outline where such transformations are occurring.
- Discuss some of the contemporary economic, social and cultural drivers to the adoption of this technology.
Characteristics of Technological Outcomes (Explanatory Paper)
- Technological outcomes are material products and systems developed for a specific function through Technological Practice.
- A technological outcome is evaluated in terms of its fitness for purpose.
- Technological outcomes can be described by their physical and functional properties.
- The terms 'Proper function', 'Alternative function' and 'Mal-function' can be related to technological outcomes.
Focus Questions
- List the physical and functional properties of the technological products that link together to form this technological system.
- What measures could be used to determine the fitness for purpose of the BioGenCool™ system?
