Aerial vision of a 2040 WA resources operation: solar arrays and wind turbines powering the site, a water-recycling facility, autonomous haul trucks with connectivity links, a remote operations centre, and a coastal town and port beyond
Year 7 · Unit 05 of 05

Design the Future

What does WA's resources industry need to look like in 2040?

The capstone. Innovation and enterprise concepts are learned by doing: teams identify a genuine future problem — automation, energy, water, workforce — and design and pitch a response. Year 7 ends with students as designers of the industry, not just observers of it.

The five lessons

A mining operation at night transformed by technology: autonomous haul trucks linked by glowing connection lines, a survey drone, remote operations centre, solar arrays and wind turbines
01
What's Changing
Automation, remote operations and new energy in WA — what the industry of 2040 already looks like in prototype.
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An innovation design table: a prototype autonomous vehicle model, concept sketchbooks, wind turbine and solar models, ore specimens and growth charts
02
What Innovation Actually Is
The concept of innovation and how businesses identify and respond to opportunities; the characteristics of entrepreneurs — WA case studies, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander businesses (cross-curriculum priority content; Aboriginal content gate applies).
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An outback community at sunset with solar panels, wind turbines, water tanks, a comms tower and a drone, connected by glowing lines to a mining operation beyond
03
Find the Problem
Teams select and scope one authentic 2040 problem worth solving.
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Hands mid design-sprint assembling a model offshore platform integrating wind and solar, over engineering sketches and sticky notes
04
The Design Sprint
Structured solution-design workshop: constraints, ideas, selection, refinement.
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A student presenting four pitch posters on easels — mining, careers, water and renewables — in a gallery space at golden hour
05
Pitch Day
Pitch posters presented and peer-reviewed (summative).
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Students produce

A pitch poster presenting their solution.

Industry connection

Delivered through the program’s partner-content framework, with a no-partner fallback for every touchpoint.

Summative task · Pitch Poster + presentation

A designed solution to a real 2040 industry problem, pitched to the class and peer-reviewed.

Curriculum alignment — the exact wording

This unit teaches the following mandated content, quoted verbatim from the revised Western Australian Curriculum.

Economics · Innovation and enterprise · Career Learning

“The concept of innovation and the ways businesses identify and respond to business opportunities”

“The characteristics of entrepreneurs, including the behaviours and skills they bring to their businesses”

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander business case studies address the mandated cross-curriculum priority; they are not claimed as a Year 7 content description.

Source: SCSA, Humanities and Social Sciences — Scope and sequence of the mandated curriculum content, P–10, For implementation in 2026.

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