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Empower your class to rewrite the plastic story!

What can you expect?

The Dopper Changemaker Challenge Junior is an international competition for children, aged 8 to 12. During this challenge, they become real-life superheroes, ready to take action and rewrite the plastic story. For this edition, they will come to the aid of three storybook characters: Stella, Simon and their talking skunk Stinky. The quest? To find a solution that will change people’s behaviour regarding single-use plastic. Sounds good, right?

If your children win, we will help their prototype get to the next level. It only takes a few children to change the world!

What method is used?

This challenge is based on the Designathon method. Designathon Works is spreading a unique educational method, which is a modular supplement to regular educational curricula and can be offered as a standalone after-school programme or interwoven with national curricula. This programme offers children the chance to tackle relevant world issues. Through this, they develop their creativity, readiness to deal with complex futures and embrace a changemaker attitude.

What will your children learn?

Apart from getting a basic understanding of the plastic issue, this challenge will:

  • Improve children's communication skills.
  • Stimulate creative thinking and help children to listen to and come up with new ideas.
  • Trigger critical thinking while discussing and choosing their best solution.
  • Teach them how to translate scientific concepts into a practical design;

How does it work?

When you sign up, we will send you all materials by email, or we can send you the printed materials by post. Good to know: all materials come with separate step-by-step instructions for you as a teacher.


In class
To get from scratch to sketch (step 1-4) and the upload of the submissions, reserve about 2 hours. Want to do more and have your children build their solutions? Schedule another two hours.

1. Inspire
Get those brain cells in motion and learn a bit about the plastic problem ... and more importantly: solutions to it!!

Materials in the toolkit:
A short presentation (max. 20 minutes), with useful speaker notes, that will help you educate your pupils about single-use plastics and the importance of behavioural change.

2. Ideate
Let’s come up with a solution! Your pupils will experience first hand how they can use their creativity, and that being creative is a process you can actually practise.

Materials in the toolkit:
An ideate sheet that contains information on research methods (for step 2) and questions that will trigger ideas and help children specify the problem they want to solve (for step 3).

3. Sketch
Your pupils will visualise their solutions in a sketch.

Materials in the toolkit:

The sketch sheet. To submit your pupils' ideas, you can upload these forms on this website.

4. Present
Every student will share their ideas with the rest of the class. This way, they will inspire each other to develop their solutions even further.

Learning objectives? Check!

By taking part in the Dopper Changemaker Challenge Junior as a school, you are giving substance to educational targets. Win-win, right?

Primary
KS2 National Curriculum Links:
● Design and Technology: "Using creativity and imagination, pupils design and make products that solve real and relevant problems within a variety of contexts, considering their own and others' needs, wants and values."
● Science: Living things and their environments, Properties and changing of materials.

New Personal Development focus, Ofsted 2019.
● Learners’ wider development is important to ensure that our young people make meaningful contributions to society.”
● A curriculum which extends beyond the academic, providing for pupils’
broader development.

Secondary
KS3 National Curriculum Links:
● Design and Technology: “Using creativity and imagination, pupils design and make products that solve real and relevant problems within a variety of contexts, considering their own and others’ needs, wants and values.

● New Personal Development focus, Ofsted 2019.
Learners’ wider development is important to ensure that our young people make meaningful contributions to society.