Challenge your students to think in wild new ways with biomimicry!

Each year, hundreds of middle and high school students discover how animal and plant “superpowers” can give them clues for how to design a more sustainable world. Their teachers challenge them to use biomimicry, a rapidly growing new discipline that looks to nature’s time-tested patterns and strategies for inspiration to solve human problems. Biomimicry offers a wonderful framework for interdisciplinary science and environmental education and empowers the next generation of problem-solvers to think differently about nature, engineering, and the future.

This workshop will demonstrate how you can use biomimicry design challenges to engage your students in core content standards while enhancing 21st-century skills. This training is offered as part of the Biomimicry Youth Design Challenge (YDC), a free education program and design competition from the Biomimicry Institute that introduces middle and high school students to biomimicry and provides professional development support to teachers. Thanks to a partnership between the Biomimicry Institute, EcoRise, and BiomimicryTX we are able to support teachers from the Austin area as they implement the program in their classroom or co-curricular program.

In this workshop you will:

• Learn the fundamentals of biomimicry and begin to see the natural world in a whole new light.
• Experience the biomimicry design process first hand as we sample a free module of lessons that supports students working toward entering the YDC.
• Discover how to use biomimicry and the YDC to support learning objectives in your class or program.
• Explore ways to connect the theme of the YDC (climate change mitigation and adaptation) to local concerns to create authentic challenge experiences.
• Meet and learn from local representatives at EcoRise, Austin Zoo, and BiomimicryTX who are available to support you and your students throughout the program.

Please bring a laptop. Questions? Email EcoRise staff at support@ecorise.org.

**AISD teachers can register through the HCP and subs will be paid for through the Science Department.

This workshop is made possible thanks to the generous support of Applied Materials.