Design Council - About the Challenge

About the challenge

The Water Design Challenge is a new initiative for Key Stage 3 students and teachers in the South East who are interested in using design to change the way people use water and in making water saving easy and enjoyable. There's a £20,000 prize fund to help schools that have designed the best products, services or campaigns to save water turn their designs into reality.

Why are we doing this?

With ever more pressure on the water supply and the effects of climate change, it’s vital that as a nation we manage our water consumption better. South East England is a water stressed area. It has less water available per person than Sudan and Syria. As summers are becoming hotter and drier and our population is increasing, we all need to find a way to reduce the amount of water we use. The Design Council is working with Southern Water to help schools reduce their water usage, drive behavior change in the next generation of water customers, and come up with innovative new ways of saving water!

What is it?

The Water Design Challenge aims to get students interested and involved in the issue of water conservation. The challenge complements the National Curriculum and provides an exciting opportunity for the whole school. By pairing your school with a Design Ambassador and providing a range of opportunities to meet water experts the challenge will enhance teaching and learning by encouraging students to use design processes and creative thinking across the curriculum to solve an urgent problem.

How the Water Design Challenge works

Each school that takes part will be partnered with a Design Ambassador who will guide them through a four step process towards designing a product, service or campaign that will help their school save water.

Find out more about how the challenge works

School commitment

It will take about five days of curriculum time - from February to June 2011 - to deliver the design project with your team of selected students. It's up to your school whether you run the Challenge in curriculum time or as an extra-curricular activity, in a concentrated block or as shorter sessions over a number of weeks or months. We'd encourage you to use it as an opportunity to work in a cross-curricular way. Last year teachers from disciplines including science, geography and design & technology took part.

Students taking part

Last year, the teams were made up of students from across year groups who wanted to use their creative thinking and innovation skills to come up with ways to save water in their school.

It's up to you how you pull together your design team.