Learnbylayers is currently being taught in Australian schools helping teachers teach their classes 3D printing. We know how important it is to ensure that lessons reflect the relevant national education standards. Below we have mapped out the curriculum highlighting where each lesson meets the standards of the Australian curriculum for Design and Technologies.
The first table shows how the lessons meet the standards for the beginners lesson pack. This is aimed at children aged in years 7 and 8.
The second table maps where the Intermediate lesson pack and the Advanced Lesson pack reflects the standards of years 9 and 10.
| Year 7 and 8 content descriptors | Lesson 1 | Lesson 2 | Lesson 3+4 | Lesson 5 | Lesson 6 | Lesson 7 Assessment |
| Design and Technology Knowledge and Understanding | ||||||
| Investigating how ethics, social values, profitability and sustainability considerations impact on design and technologies |  | |||||
| Considering factors that influence the selection of appropriate materials, components, tools and equipment | | |||||
| Investigating influences impacting on manufactured products and processes such as historical developments, society and new materials | | | ||||
| Producing prototypes and jigs to test functionality, including the use of rapid prototyping tools such as 3D printers | | | | | | |
| Investigating aspects of technologies specialisations, for example in architecture, critiquing the design of an existing building | | |||||
| Considering the ways in which the characteristics and properties of technologies will impact on designed solutions | | |||||
| Design and Technologies process and production skills | ||||||
| Investigating emerging technologies and their potential impact on design decisions | | | | | | |
| Selecting appropriate materials to acknowledge sustainability requirements by using life cycle thinking | | |||||
| Using a variety of critical and creative thinking strategies such as brainstorming, sketching, 3-D modelling and experimenting to generate innovative design ideas | | | | |||
| Investigating emerging technologies and their potential impact on design decisions | | | | | | |
| Using: technical terms, scale, symbols, pictorial and aerial views to draw environments | | |
The table below maps where the learnbylayers Intermediate curriculum and the Advanced curriculum meets the standards of the Australian curriculum for Design and Technologies for year 9 and 10 students. This also includes the links to Maths and Science content that each lesson contains, resulting in a true STEM experience for the students.
| Year 9 and 10 content descriptors | Lesson 8 | Lesson 9 | Lesson 10+11 | Lesson 12 | Lesson 13 | Lesson 14 | Lesson 15 Assessment | Lesson 16 | Lesson 17 | Lesson 18+19 | Lesson 20 | Lesson 21 Assessment |
| Design and Technology Knowledge and Understanding | ||||||||||||
| Evaluating design and technology professions and their contributions to society locally, nationally, regionally and globally | | | ||||||||||
| Explaining how product life cycle thinking can influence decision-making related to design and technologies, for example rethinking products to provide for re-use, selecting a material for a product that has a lower carbon footprint | | | | | ||||||||
| Critiquing mass production systems taking into account ethics and sustainability considerations | | | | |||||||||
| Considering how creativity, innovation and enterprise contribute to how products, services and environments evolve | | | | |||||||||
| Exploring the ways commercial enterprises respond to the challenges and opportunities of technological change, for example e-commerce, and carbon footprint | | | | | | |||||||
| Explaining the consequences of social, ethical and sustainability decisions for products, services and environments | | | | | ||||||||
| Predicting the impact of emerging technologies for preferred futures | | | | | ||||||||
| Recognising real-world problems and understanding basic needs when considering designed solutions | | | | |||||||||
| Critiquing the effectiveness of the combinations of materials, forces, energy and motion in an engineered system such as a 3D printer | | | | | ||||||||
| Examining emerging production technologies and methods in terms of productivity, profitability and sustainability | | | | | | |||||||
| Critiquing the design of an existing product to identify environmental consequences of material selection | | | | |||||||||
| Justifying decisions when selecting from a broad range of technologies − materials, systems, components, tools and equipment | | | | | ||||||||
| Investigating emerging materials and their impact on design decisions | | | | | ||||||||
| Examining factors influencing the design of a product that has an explicit environmental emphasis | | | | |||||||||
| Critiquing product manufacturing processes in relation to society, ethics, and sustainability factors | | | | |||||||||
| Design and Technologies Processes and Production Skills | ||||||||||||
| Critiquing the design of new products to identify how well design ideas respond to sustainability issues | | | | |||||||||
| Producing drawings, models and prototypes to explore design ideas, for example using technical drawing techniques, digital imaging programs, 3D printers or augmented reality modelling software; producing multiple prototypes that show an understanding of key aesthetic considerations in competing designs | | | | | | | ||||||
| Communicating using appropriate technical terms | | | | | | | | | | | ||
| Refining technical skills and using production skills with independence to produce quality designed solutions | | | | | | | ||||||
| Evaluating and justifying the use and best combination of traditional, contemporary and emerging technologies | | | | | | |||||||
| Evaluating choices made at various stages of a design process and modifying plans when needed with consideration of criteria for success | | | | | ||||||||
| Reflecting on learning, evaluating processes and transferring new knowledge and skills to future design projects | | | | | ||||||||
| Producing, explaining and interpreting drawings; and planning production timelines using digital technologies | | | | |||||||||
| Establishing materials and equipment needs using digital technologies | | | | |||||||||
| Investigating manufacturing processes to identify strategies to enhance production | | | | |||||||||
| Links to Mathemathics | ||||||||||||
| Calculation of quantities of materials, costs and sizes | | | | | ||||||||
| Scaling drawings | | | | | | |||||||
| Measurement and marking out, creating tessellated patterns | | | | | | |||||||
| Links to Science | ||||||||||||
| Appropriate use of scientific terms | | | | | | | | | | | ||
| Calculation of quantities, measurement of materials and selection of components | | | | | ||||||||
| Classification of the types and properties of a range of materials | | | ||||||||||
| Selection of materials and components based on ethical factors, taking into consideration the ecological and social footprint of materials | | | | |||||||||
| Knowledge of properties of materials to be applied when designing and making | | |