Designing Innovations from the Land
Learners work in groups to learn from the land and design helpful innovations using words and pictures.
Overview
In this activity, learners use ideas learned from the land to design helpful innovations. They work in groups to plan, draw, and improve designs that help people and care for the land.
Instructions
What you'll need
- Innovation Image Cards (Activity 1)
- Learning from the Land: Did You Know? Cards (Activity 2)
- Group Activity Sheet: Designing an Innovation from the Land
- Designing Innovations from the Land: Slide Deck
- Crayons or markers
- Chart paper or large paper (one per group)
Learning Launch: Starting Our Design Thinking
- If learners have completed Learning What Makes Innovations Helpful and Learning From the Land activities briefly review how ideas form the land can inspire helpful innovations. If not, briefly review key ideas using Innovation Image Cards or Did you Know cards?
- Briefly revisit the criteria for helpful innovations:
- Makes things easier or safer
- Helps people
- Cares for the land
- Explain to students that groups will choose one idea they learned from the land and use it to design a helpful innovation that meets the above criteria
- Organize learners into small groups. Display and/or distribute several Did you Know? Cards.
- Invite learners to look carefully and choose one picture that gives them a strong idea for a helpful innovation
- Have learners talk together about what their picture shows, what it might help with, and what clues in the image supports their ideas.
Developing Understanding: Building Our Design
- Hand-out the Designing an Innovation from the Land to each group and direct learners to the first section, Our Idea from the Land. Have groups use words and pictures to record:
- The picture they chose, and
- The helpful idea they learned from the land, and
- Which criteria it all fits
- Guide groups to use their land idea to think about what they could make, who it could help, and how it could make things safer and easier while caring for the land
- Move students onto the second section Our Design Idea on the worksheet. Ask them to use words and pictures to show:
- What they will make
- How it uses their land idea,
- How it helps people, makes things safer or easier, and/or cares for the land
- Encourage groups to use key words to different parts of their idea to explain their thinking
- Ask groups to check the boxes of the criteria that fits their design, if one point of the criteria doesn’t fit get them to add one small detail to get it to
Reflect and Revise: Making Our Design Better
- Pair each group with another group. Have each group take turns sharing their design and encourage listening.
- Request the listeners to offer one kind, helpful suggestion to improve the other groups idea by using sentences like:
- One way you could make it even more helpful…
- One part that could help is…
- Encourage groups to think about how their design could be made better to fit the criteria
- Give groups time to revise their design using the feedback they got from the other group
- Ask learners to Think Forward by asking:
- Where is one place in our school or community where this innovation could help?
- How could it make things better there?
Modify or extend this activity
Modifications:
- Completing the design process as a whole class using one shared image and modelled discussion.
- Inviting learners to explain ideas orally, through gestures, or with labels instead of full drawings.
- Working in pairs or with adult support when independent group work is challenging.
- Using teacher-selected images when image choice creates cognitive overload.
- Providing sentence starters, word banks, or visual prompts for learners who need language support.
- Offering partially completed templates to support learners who benefit from additional structure.
Extensions:
- Inviting learners to test or role-play how their design might be used.
- Revisiting designs after peer feedback and making a second improved version.
- Connecting designs to real school or community needs (e.g., playground safety, water use, storage).
- Exploring how different materials might affect safety, durability, or environmental impact.
- Creating a simple class “design showcase” where learners explain how their innovation meets the criteria.
- Linking this activity to outdoor observation or community walks.
- Inviting learners to redesign an existing object using ideas from the land.
Curriculum Fit
Core Competencies
Communication
- Focusing on Intent and Purpose
- Acquiring and Presenting Information
- Working Collectively
- Supporting Group Interactions
Thinking
- Questioning and Investigating
- Designing and Developing
- Reflecting and Assessing
- Creating and Innovating
- Generating and Incubating
Personal and Social
- Identifying Personal Strengths and Abilities
- Contributing to Community and Caring for the Environment
- Resolving Problems
Science 1-3
Big Ideas
- Living things have features that help them survive their environment (Gr.1)
- Observing patterns in nature to learn designs within the world (Gr.1)
- All living things have life cycles and adaptations that help them survive (Gr.2)
- Forces in nature can inspire human design (Gr.3)
Content
- Features of local plants and animals (Gr.1)
- Local natural patterns (Gr.1)
- Natural adaptations and survival strategies (Gr.2)
Curricular Competencies
Questioning & Predicting
- Observe plants, animals, and natural features (Gr.1)
- Ask questions about how natural features solve problems (Gr.1-2)
- Predict how group innovations could help people or place (Gr.2)
- Predict how changes would improve usefulness or sustainability (Gr.3)
Planning and Conducting
- Use drawings and words to share ideas for a helpful innovation (Gr.1)
- Work in a group to choose a single land idea (Gr.1-3)
- Decide which criteria the innovation meets (Gr.2)
- Plan and document design process (Gr.3)
Processing & Analyzing Data and Information
- Describe how land-inspired idea helps people (Gr.1)
- Analyze how well designs meet all three criteria (Gr.2-3)
Evaluating
- Recognize strengths in design (Gr.2)
- Revise designs based on peer feedback (Gr.2-3)
Applying and Innovating
- Recognize that people can learn from the land to solve problems (Gr.3)
- Demonstrate responsibility with care for people and land (Gr.3)
Communicating
- Present designs using pictures, labels and oral explanations (Gr.1-3)
- Explain how innovation helps and why it matters (Gr. 2)
- Use feedback language respectfully and constructively 9gr.3)
Applied Design, Skills, and Technologies 1-3
Big Ideas
- Designs can be improved by learning from natura and through sharing ideas (Gr.1)
- Designing solutions that make life easier, safer, and more sustainable (Gr.2)
- Designs improve when testing, reflecting, and revising is done (Gr.2)
- Designs must meet specific criteria and consider impact on community and environment (Gr.3)
Content
- Basic steps of design: idea, create, share, improve (Gr.1)
- Problem-solving steps: planning, constructing, testing, improving (Gr.2)
- Prototyping with purpose (Gr.3)
Curricular Competencies
- Generate simple design ideas inspired by nature (Gr.1)
- Incorporate feedback to revise design (Gr.1-2)
- Generate multiple ideas and choose one that meets innovation criteria (Gr.2-3)
- Make simple plans with words, pictures, and labels (Gr.2-3)
- Incorporate feedback to revise design (Gr.2)
Social Studies 1-3
Big Ideas
- Learning about community by exploring places and the land (Gr.1)
- People use the land in ways that support living things (Gr.1)
- Indigenous knowledge can teach how to understand and care for the land (Gr.2-3)
- Communities have responsibilities to care for the land the people (Gr.3)
Content
- Local environment and how people interact with it (Gr.1)
- Ways communities take care of the land (Gr.1)
- Relationships between land and community well-being (Gr.2)
- Indigenous knowledge about land stewardship (Gr.2-3)
- Organization structure in communities that support decision making about land use (Gr.3)
Curricular Competencies
- Explore and share how people and animals use the land (Gr.1)
- Recognize different perspectives on how we care for places (Gr.1)
- Ask questions about places and communities (Gr.2)
- Identify how people affect and are affected by environment (Gr.3)
Assessments
Assessment opportunities are integrated throughout the activity, through observation, discussion, and drawing. These include:
- Using learners’ initial image choices to notice how they identify and justify strong ideas from the land.
- Observing how groups apply the criteria when designing their innovation.
- Listening for how learners explain their thinking using clues from the images and the criteria.
- Using group drawings and explanations to guide feedback on clear communication through words and pictures.
- Noticing how learners respond to peer feedback and revise their designs to strengthen their ideas.
- Using learners’ revised designs to support feedback on how effectively they connect land-based ideas to helpful innovations.
Teaching Notes
Overview
These teaching notes provide additional guidance to support:
- Learning Launch
- Developing Understanding
- Reflect and Revise
- Supporting connections to innovation
- Supporting evidence-based talk
- Indigenous perspectives: learning from the land
- Clean energy connections
They are intended to support professional judgment and adaptation to local contexts.
Learning Launch
Some teachers may find it helpful to allow learners time to think quietly about the images before sharing, supporting independent thinking prior to discussion.
When learners share, attention may be given to how they explain why certain land ideas seem especially helpful. Emphasizing that more than one reasonable response is possible can help establish a culture of inquiry.
If learners have not completed earlier activities, a small number of sample image cards may support a brief review of how people learn from the land through observation.
When groups are selecting images, some teachers may choose to highlight the role of criteria and visual clues in decision-making, rather than personal preference.
Developing Understanding
Opportunities for talk, sketching, pointing, and gesture can support early design thinking and shared understanding within groups.
When learners move from observation to design, open-ended questions may help them connect land ideas to possible innovations (e.g., “What does this idea help with?”).
If learners experience difficulty making this connection, briefly modelling one example may support further exploration. For example:
Spider webs are strong and flexible → We could design a net to carry toys safely → This helps people by stopping things from falling → We could use strong cloth instead of plastic, so it cares for the land.
Adding labels or key words to drawings can help make thinking visible for both learners and teachers.
Reflect and Revise
When learners share designs, feedback can be framed as support for strengthening ideas rather than judging them.
Some teachers may find it helpful to model criteria-based feedback language.
Opportunities to hear others’ ideas may prompt learners to reconsider and refine their own designs.
If time is limited, focusing on one small revision may help keep the process manageable.
Supporting Connections to Innovation
This activity invites learners to notice how features of the land help living things stay safe, strong, cool, warm, or organized, and to consider how these ideas might inform helpful designs.
Some guiding questions that may support this connection include:
- “What is helping here?”
- “How could that help people?”
- “What could be made using this idea?”
The emphasis is on helping learners see innovation as responding to real needs using ideas learned from the land.
Example Observation → Design Connections
(For teacher reference. Not intended as answers.)
These examples illustrate possible connections learners might make:
- Woodpecker → Protect • Cushion • Absorb impact
- Spider Web → Catch • Connect • Stretch
- Cactus → Save water • Protect • Stay cool
- Beaver Dam → Slow water • Protect • Control flow
- Bird Nest → Shelter • Insulate • Protect
- Sunflower → Follow light • Warm • Grow
- Beehive → Store • Share • Save space
- Tree Roots → Anchor • Support • Stabilize
Learners’ own ideas may differ and should be encouraged when supported by criteria and evidence.
Supporting Evidence-Based Talk
Grade 1-3 learners may demonstrate evidence in many ways, including words, gestures, pointing, and partial phrases.
Some language that may support evidence-based talk includes:
- “I think this helps because…”
- “I know because I see…”
- “This makes it safer because…”
These forms of communication can be recognized as valid expressions of reasoning, particularly for emerging speakers and writers.
Indigenous Perspectives: Learning from the Land
Many Indigenous people view land as first teacher and emphasize learning through respectful attention to relationships among all parts of the world. Land, water, plants, animals, and other elements are often viewed as living and in relation with us and thus deserving of care.
This framing is intended to be present-day and respectful. No single story or teaching represents all Indigenous Peoples.
Teachers are not expected to teach specific Indigenous knowledge. The focus is on shared values such as learning through observation, respect for relationships, and caring for land and community.
Clean Energy Connections (Optional)
Energy connections may be explored through everyday experiences, such as:
- noticing cooler areas in shade,
- feeling warmth in sheltered spaces,
- observing how sunlight supports growth.
These examples can help learners recognize how thoughtful design supports comfort, energy awareness, and care for places.
The goal is to build awareness through lived experience rather than technical explanation.
Activity Materials
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