Design Emergency takes design thinking into schools using a variety of techniques and resources. The project will focus on issues or challenges relevant to the students. The object will be to take the students through a design thinking process that will generate a number of solutions that addresses these challenges. The focus will be on the process of working collaboratively, experimenting and engaging with design thinking methodology. At this stage we are taking the program into primary schools.

The Design Emergency website (launching in 2012) will be easy for both students and teachers to use. It will enable teachers to run their own Design Emergency and integrate it into their teaching programs or use it as a standalone program. There will be an opportunity for teachers to ask for help and in time there will be a place to share your Design Emergency with others.

The program offers students the opportunity to make prototypes, write a pitch, interview, use their imagination and think ‘outside the box.’ Design Emergency will fulfil a number of syllabus outcomes in literacy, numeracy, Science and Technology, Creative Arts, and HSIE. These will be highlighted in the teachers’ notes on the website.

Object see Design Emergency as an opportunity to purpose the curriculum in an interesting way and to introduce students and teachers to the world of design and problem solving.

It will be highly beneficial for teachers to participate in teacher training on design thinking and how to run the program. Teachers will find the design thinking methodology interesting and helpful in many aspects of the professional life.

Schools running the program may want a designer to come out to visit the class and Object will facilitate this aspect of the program.

Design thinking has recently become an important part of the teaching in many university business schools. Private corporations, government and business are utilising design thinking to solve problems and improve their organisations in a variety of ways.

Design is not only about making things: it can change the way people behave.

For more information on Design Emergency, please contact Annette Mauer on +61 2 9361 4555 or email a.mauer@object.com.au.