Biomimicry

Think about how long nature has been here. Think about how long it took to evolve plants and animals. Make a 60 second clock that shows nature’s evolution. Show what occurred in each five second period. In the last fifteen second period you will need a lot of room to add notes!!!!! Submit a History of Life clock to the gallery! Think about human evolution- when we came into the big picture and and where we are know. You are part of this picture. What will YOU do? What will you contribute?

Working in a group or by yourself, look at different ways nature can be a tool to design a roof over your head. All of nature’s creatures, large and small, create habitation, or homes in which to survive and thrive. What can we learn from insects, marine animals, and mammals? Find three pictures of habitats - one form an insect, one form a marine animal, and one from a mammal. Use a word web to describe each of their habitats. Describe what alterations they make to respond to climate and predators. Take what you have learned and envision three different types of abodes, or homes for humans based on your findings. Think about how these habitats protect and shelter their inhabitants. Can we create new homes for people that learn from nature’s constructions.Consider making a digital presentation of your research and ideas, writing a paper or making models. Talk about or share your ideas with classmates on how your images can be turned into a house or home.

Be a biomimetic innovator!

Nature disposes of its waste in creative ways. It returns its material back into a renewing cycle. Humans for centuries have left behind them junkyards full of their waste. If we look to biomimicry, we will learn ways we can be responsible for our waste and reuse it in creative and new ways. For instance, create a Metal Dump for your community. Share the news by pinning up posters and distributing fliers. Ask your neighbors, friends and family to help collect metal recyclables, old hardware and metal junk. Collect these items in a safe and accessible location. Set a date for your community to gather the material. Organize how you will reuse these discards or redistribute the materials. Objects can be linked together or taken apart to imitate nature in sculpture! Objects can be recycled to create new objects.

Copy Nature! Make waste part of a renewable cycle!

You can feel nature by using your senses. Step outside and spend a moment just being quiet. Turn around with your eyes closed and then pay attention to what you hear, and smell, the way the air feels against your skin, the direction it is blowing from, where you feel it on your body and where you don’t. Can you tell what time it is without looking at your watch? Can you predict the weather later in the day by looking at signs in the sky? Can you tell how far into a season you are by the color and condition of plants around you? What signs have you been missing from nature?

Solving Climate Change - Join the Biomimicry Global Design Challenge from Biomimicry Institute on Vimeo.

Learning how nature’s accomplishes everything it does, think of something you need to know. Just Ask Nature how it is done! Think of biomimetic processes and create symbols for dynamic balance, flow, networking, or others that you think about. Stay current with innovations, events, media and the general buzz currently happening around Biomimicry. Start a Bimimicry Club that organizes students to look into current events that are learning from and innovating with nature. Start a school bulletin board that posts ‘Learning From Nature’ stories. Hold a “table talk” to discuss the recent news you’ve learned. Set up a Google school site for Biomimicry. Blog about it and share with your friends and family.


Be part of the Bionaissance!

• Where does Biomimicry come from?
  • A book
  • Nature's Regenerative Evolution
• What is Biomimicry?
  • affiliation with life in all of its forms
  • learning from nature's regenerative cycles
  • learning from nature's eco systems
  • all of the above!
• We can learn from nature to help solve our problems.
  • true
  • false
• How would you improve energy efficiency of buildings?
  • make them clean their water
  • plant green roofs
  • use natural ventilation as much as possible
  • vegetate interiors and exteriors
  • use renewable energy sources
  • all of the above
• How could you create color without toxic pigments and dyes?
  • use recycled chemical products
  • use plants