# Australian Design and Technologies authoring review

Reviewed 21 October 2026. All 29 Foundation–Year 6 standards are Full in the
[coverage report](acara-v9-design-technologies-coverage.md), with 111 links
across 78 topics: 48 existing and 30 new.

## Shared subjects and reuse

No subject is added. New topics use:

| Subject | Domain | New topics |
|---|---|---:|
| Science | Scientific Inquiry (transferable design processes) | 7 |
| Science | Design & Technology (physical making and production) | 15 |
| Life Skills | Food & Cooking | 4 |
| Geography | Places & Environments | 4 |

Design & Technology and Food & Cooking are shared domains. The curriculum's
learning-area name does not create a parallel subject tree. Existing design,
materials, forces, circuits, sustainability and teamwork topics remain linked.
Recent Health, HASS and Computing topics supply hygiene, land-use, digital-tool
and planning prerequisites. Digital interface design remains in Computing;
using digital tools to draw physical designs is a general design skill.

Required practical skills have observable tasks: using suitable tools safely,
trialling joins and components, drawing with digital tools and attribution,
negotiating criteria, making project plans, preparing food and growing a food
plant. The three previously Full standards were rechecked against their evidence.

## Factual review

The shared Balanced Diet & Food Groups topic (`mt_QhLAeAlHI0`) now distinguishes
food groups from nutrients. Learners use a suitable local healthy-eating guide
and retain the nutrient-function learning in the existing topic. Australian
examples follow the [five food groups](https://www.eatforhealth.gov.au/food-essentials/five-food-groups).
Related nutrition prompts receive the same terminology correction. Existing
IDs, alignments and teaching-research records are retained.

Food-preparation prompts ask how methods affect texture, colour and nutrient
retention, with evidence from a comparison, instead of claiming one method is
always healthier. Effects differ by food, nutrient and preparation conditions
([comparative study](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6049644/)).
Playground surfacing is described as reducing injury risk or severity, without
guaranteeing that no injury occurs.

## Teaching-guidance correction after PR review

The linked research for Animal Nutrition still described nutrients as food groups.
The three existing nutrition records now distinguish food groups from nutrients
throughout their teaching summaries, activities, representations and assessment.
Balanced-plate activities follow a local healthy-eating guide rather than dividing
food into seven nutrient proportions. Citation claims and activity source claims
remain linked. The canonical research records and public projection are updated
together, preserving record identities and coverage.

## Verification and scope

The live graph, persisted mirror, database and export agree. All existing IDs,
curriculum links and prerequisite edges are preserved. The batch adds
89 prerequisites, with no cycles, age-span warnings or new hard
prerequisite age conflicts. All new edges are age-ordered; all new hard
prerequisites have Australian or universal alignments. Derived centrality matches
the final graph. The 1,049 teaching-research records are retained; 881 topics
lack research, as explicitly recorded in dataset coverage.

This completes the [593 content descriptions in the agreed scope](acara-v9-scope-coverage.md).
PE, Arts, Languages, elaborations and achievement standards remain excluded.