30 for 30 Tok: IB Design Technology: The Thinking Behind the Subject

By James Cartwright

Design Technology is the subject that knows by doing. Its students produce knowledge through making, and this book asks what kind of knowledge that is, how it relates to theoretical understanding, and what it reveals about the things and systems that humans design into existence.

30 For 30 TOK: IB Design Technology is the seventeenth book in the 30 For 30 TOK series, which pairs thirty IB diploma subjects with thirty searching questions about the nature of the knowledge it produces. This volume focuses on the IB Design Technology course, asking questions about design thinking, materials science, user-centred design, sustainability, and the ethical and aesthetic dimensions of the designed world.

From the epistemology of prototyping to the politics of inclusive design, from the environmental ethics of planned obsolescence to the question of what designed objects reveal about the societies that produce them, the thirty questions in this book press on what design knowledge is and how it is produced. Sample responses model what thoughtful, critical engagement with design and its consequences looks like in practice.

Designed for IB Design Technology students, teachers, TOK educators, and anyone interested in the relationship between human making and human knowing.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0H51NXGRK
• ISBN13: 9798180455192
• Release Date: June 2026
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 232 Pages
• Weight: 0.63 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.0" x 9.0"