Key Stage 2, 3 and 4+ Free Activity

Lesson Plan: Design your own environmentally friendly packaging

Plastic waste is a problem that inspired Guy Jeremiah to find a solution to one of the most common culprits; the plastic bottle.

Everyday millions upon millions of bottles of water are sold around the world. Guy thought, ‘what if you always had a bottle on you ready to fill up?’ It would be quite big so Guy had a solution for that; make the bottle collapsable so that you can put it in your pocket. But where would you find the water? Guy also had the solution to that; an app that locates your nearest fountain.

Watch Guy talk about the Ohyo bottle and ‘find a fountain’ app to find out how design can help combat plastic waste.

Things to do

Have a look in your recycling bin. What plastic are you throwing away the most?

Pick one piece of packaging and design your own environmentally friendly version. Take a piece of paper and a pencil and draw your packaging. Your packaging has to do the following;

  • Protect the food inside it.
  • Be as reusable or recyclable as possible.
  • Still be exciting and eye catching for shoppers so that it stands out in the supermarket.

Share your illustration with the Design Museum on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram using #DesignFromHome.

To read

The Bic Biro

Some plastic things have revolutionised the way that we work at school, at home and in the office. The biro ball point pen replaced the fountain pen as the go to writing tool. Find out more about this hero of the pencil case here.

Young Design Museum

Young Design Museum

See what other activities are available for young people as part of the museum's Digital Design Calendar.