Year 5 Technologies – Term 4 (WA Curriculum): Sustainable Design and Food Systems

What this unit covers

In Term 4, Year 5 Technologies in the WA Curriculum centres on the unit “Sustainable Design and Food Systems”.

Students explore how technologies are used in food production, material design, and sustainable practices while understanding the role of design professionals in creating solutions for community needs.

Lesson sequence (8 lessons)

The unit breaks down into the following lesson-by-lesson sequence — each title below is a teachable lesson, in order:

1. Exploring Sustainable Food and Fibre Production Systems
2. Designing Hydroponic Growing Systems for School Gardens
3. Creating Assembly Line Systems for Healthy School Lunches
4. Investigating Food Safety Systems in School Kitchens
5. Testing Material Properties for Protective Packaging Design
6. Engineering Origami Structures for Functional Purposes
7. Careers in Design: How Professionals Balance Competing Factors
8. Building Simple Electrical Circuits for Interactive Displays

Curriculum codes in this unit

Content codes:

Skills codes:

Reading the codes: WA codes (the ones starting with WA) pack the year level, learning area, strand and content number into one string, while the national Australian Curriculum v9 uses a different anatomy that starts with AC9 — same content family, different labels. Our complete WA Curriculum guide decodes both, character by character.

Planning notes for Term 4

WA terms run roughly 9–11 weeks, and in 2026 Term 4 runs from Monday 12 October to Thursday 17 December — 10 weeks for WA public schools. With 8 lessons in this unit, that leaves breathing room for assessment, moderation and the weeks that disappear to carnivals, camps and public holidays — plan the assessable work to land two to three weeks before the end of term rather than in the final week.