TRIZ Textbooks:  CID Course for Children, 1-1G7
Topic 7.  Glass City
Fairy Tales School:
Course of Creative Imagination Development (CID), 1st Grade, 1st Semester, Methodical Guide-Book
Natalia V. Rubina, 1999 [published in Russian]
English translation by Irina Dolina, May 23, 2000
Technical Editing by Toru Nakagawa, Feb. 28, 2001
Posted in this "TRIZ Home Page in Japan" in English on Feb. 28, 2001 under the permission of the Author.
(C) N.V. Rubina, I. Dolina, and T. Nakagawa 2001

 
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Topic 7.  Glass City 

Workbook
     The topic "Glass city" is a summing up of our work in the course of the first half a year.  We have studied quite difficult and very important method for perception of the whole course, i.e., system operator.  One of the main aims of this study is building the system world outlook.  This is one of the most important directions of the CID course and, surely, we are going to return to this topic for reviewing of the basic notions.

     "Glass City", "soap people" and  lots of other amazing ideas were presented to the children and the adults by Janni Rodari, a kind story-teller.  In this program there is only one topic like that.  If you want, you may work out the final lesson, using a simple method:  how the world, built of one material only, is organized.  The course of a lesson  and gradual "stirring" of   children's imagination you will find in this guide.


1.  Warming up

2.  Homework check-up

3.  Introduction to the lesson

     -  I have an ordinary umbrella in my hands.  Let's try to tell somebody who has never seen and used it everything that we know about it, using all your knowledge about systems.
     -  Once at a factory, where umbrellas are produced an amazing incident happened.  All the material necessary for umbrellas suddenly finished.  Only glass was left at the factory.  But glass is not needed to make umbrellas.  All the workers were going home but some eccentric man took glass-blowing tube and in a few moments the astonished workers saw a glass umbrella.
     -  What a wonderful thing! - some of them said.
     -  That's rubbish! -  the others said.
     And what do you think  about this glass umbrella: is it good or bad?
 

     Mind that various properties of the glass in different situations make the products comfortable and vice versa.


4.  Main topic

     The Sorcerer Deli-Davai sent his greetings and gave a new task: fill the diagram of a system operator for the glass umbrella.
 
 

The past of a  super-system
 
 Super-system
 
The future of a super-system
 
The past of a system
 
System
 
The future of a system
 
The past of a  subsystem
 
Subsystem
 
The future of subsystem
 

     This diagram is a full sketch of a system operator.  The kids gets to know it for the first time; that is why it's worth considering its screens in detail.  It is more simple for the kids, as a rule, to sketch what is placed on every screen.

     This is an example of filling a diagram.  Your student might have your own original udders.
 
 

The glass man  invented and made a glass umbrella 
 
 The glass man with a glass umbrella in his hands
 
The adventures of a glass man, the umbrella helps him to find friends
 
The glass umbrella  was earlier the sand, soda, they were mixed , heated and an umbrella appeared
 
The glass umbrella 
 
 The umbrella  grew very big and become  the house for the glass man
 
White sand, soda etc. 
 
The top of the umbrella, the handle, the decorations
 
The umbrella-house  must have doors,windows, etc.
 

 
     In a fairy-tale about a glass umbrella, the glass men, the glass houses  and so on have already appeared.  And what might happen if the whole world consists of glass only?
     The Glass City
                                                             by  Janni Rodari.

A beggar Jovannino called Lazy Boy,
Once sailing in a boat,
He decided to have a rest on the surface.

He found himself on an amazing island
Everything there was made of glass and
was shining in the sun:
the trees and the houses.

As a Crystal the people are transparent.
Like clean water;
That is why each others' thoughts
are easily read there.

Just raise your hat,
And  immediately everybody will find
Out  how you are doing.

But the people pass by
without  raising their hats.
It is not always pleasant when
everybody knows everything about us.

     The glass is really a very unusual stuff.  In the Card Index for the First Grade you'll find the information about the history of glass and about an amazing scholar and his amazing glass.


6.  Activities on speech skills developing, producing a creative product
 
 
    Many years ago when magicians were still living next to people the part of glass became animated.
     "The animated glass", instead of standing in the form of decent glasses and  jars on the shelves, it began to wonder around the city and got itself involved in amazing situations.

     Let's devise out what could happen to the glass men in our city.
 

     In each group the stories about the adventures of the glass men are different.  It is convenient to sketch or write down the ideas of the kids in a sketch book.  The following questions might be very helpful.  In what situations the glass men will need their transparency?  And when it is not convenient?   What systems the glass men will make friends with?   Which systems should they be afraid of ?


     -  It will be hard for the glass men to get into a bus or a trolley-bus during the rush hour ...
     -  Nothing will be left of them!
     -  How can we help them?
     (Many ideas how to protect the glass men will be suggested.)
     -  There is something in your suggestions that I don' like...   Let's remember how the glass is made.
     -  Everything is mixed and heated.
     -  That's true.  Soda, sand and some other substances are mixed and heated at a very high temperature.  The fluid, viscid mass is produced.  Such a mass cannot be broken.  So, the glass men should live in the place where it is hot.
     -  On the Sun.
     -  No, it is too hot. They will be burnt.
     -  In the stove.
     -  At the factory, where the jars and glasses are manufactured.
     -  And I think  "animated glass" has found such a planet where the temperature keeps it fluid and  cannot be broken.  Thus, in the  glass city it is always hot: in winter and at night - always.  Everything  around us flows and changes.
     -  Now let's decide how the life in the glass city is arranged.

The house:  If you blow the glass you will get a balloon. The houses are  spheres.
The transport:  Everything in the city flows, it is necessary to build roads, along which it is convenient to flow.
The fashion: Colored glass  with changing forms.
     Thus we have devised the whole story of the glass city.  We may choose the main characters and continue the contest with their help.  Everything depends on your imagination.


7.  Summing up

     Mind the notions that helped to devise the glass city and find out how it was built...
 

References
 
 1.  Altov G.: "And Suddenly the Inventor Appeared", Detskaya Literatura, Moscow, 1989.
 2.  Bashaeva T.V.:  "Children's Developing of Perception", Akademia nauk, Yaroslavl, 1997.
 3.  Belobrykina V.G.:  "How to Become a Magician", Moscow, 1994.
4.  Granovskaya R.M.:  "Elements of Practical Psychology", Publishing House Svet, Sankt-Petersburg, 1997.
5.  Grinder and Bendler:  "From the Frog to the Princes (neirolinguistic programming)".
6.  "Children's Encyclopedia", Rosmen, 1994.
7.  "Games: Educating, Traning, Recreation", edited by V.V. Petrusinsky, Novaya shkola, Moscow, 1994.
8.  Kryazheva N.L.: "Developing of Emotional World of the Children",  Akademia razvitiya, Yaroslav,1997
9.  Kuryachaya M.: "Chemistry in Pictures",  Detskaya literatura, Moscow, 1992
10.  Seminar materials of Murashkowska I.N. and Nesterenko A.A., 1994-1995
11.  Murashkowska I.N.:  "When I Become a Magician", Theory of Knowledge, issue 5, Riga, 1993.
12.  Murashkowska I.N. and Valums N.P.: "The Non-stop Pictures", Publishing TOO "TRIZ-Shans", Sankt-Petersburg, 1995.
13.  Nesterenko AA.: "The Land of riddles. The Method of Using Riddles", TRIZ Magazine 3.4.92
14.  Rodari, J.: "Fantasy Grammar", Progress, Moscow, 1990.
15.  Rubina N.V.: "Creative Imagination Developing course for the elementary school", Petrozavodsk, 1996.
16.  Rubina N.V.: " Workbook on CID (Creative Imagination Development) for a first grade (first semester)", Petrozavodsk, 1998
17.  Magazine "Tram". 1.1.90
18.  Uralskaya V.L. and Litvin S.S.: "Conjuring Trick as a Subject of Education  and a Method", Magazine TRIZ. 3.4.92.
 
 

END of the Guide-book 1-1

 
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Last updated on Feb. 28, 2001.     Access point:  Editor: nakagawa@utc.osaka-gu.ac.jp