Museum of the Mundane (Student Guide) – Digital Promise

Museum of the Mundane (Student Guide)

Museum of the Mundane (Student Guide)

How might we learn more about an object by deconstructing it?


Prepare: Learn about the key ideas in this project

How can we learn more about an object and the choices that went into how it was made and what it was made from? How can we closely examine simple objects in order to understand their underlying complexity?How might this process help us build our own objects in the future?

    • Most objects are made up of many parts. What are all the parts of the object?
    • What are the purposes of each of those parts? How do they contribute to the overall purpose of the object?
    • In what ways is this object complex? How do those complexities support or detract from the ultimate use of the object?

Practice: Try as many activities to as you would like to build your skills

Disassemble and reassemble an everyday object. Can you carefully use hand tools (screw drivers, pliers, etc.) to take the object apart? When you put it back together, will it still work?

Learn to use the Size Up app on the HP Sprout to measure something. How could this help you with this project?


Produce: Dig into the project and make it your own!

Create a “museum exhibit” that reveals the hidden complexity of an everyday object. Define, document, and display the object in a way that helps other people understand how even simple things are sophisticated when you look closely enough.


This project is adapted from Agency by Design Educator Resources – Thinking Routines.

Produced by Digital Promise Global, with thanks to the Open Educational Resources listed throughout this guide. Distributed to Learning Studios schools as part of HP, Inc. and Microsoft’s Reinvent the Classroom.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. You may share this project or modified versions of it under this same license.

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