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Introduction to Biomimicry
Course #: ENVSTY 102
Description:
This course is an introduction to the field of biomimicry. ''Biomimicry'' (from Greek words bios, meaning life, and mimesis, meaning to imitate) is a multidisciplinary science that studies nature's best ideas and then translates these designs, functions and processes into human world to solve problems. Biomimicry asks the question: What would nature do? How can we learn from nature, not just about nature? The goal is to create resilient products, processes, and policies by learning from and ''listening to'' nature, to wisdom held in species and ecological systems that has been evolving and accumulating over the past 3.8 billion years. Biomimicry is neither aesthetic nor technological, or just a form. Rather, it focuses on sustainable adaptability, adaptive growth and resiliency. Natural systems and organisms provide stunning examples of effective adaptation, communication, collaboration, resource production and storage, and energy-efficient designs that support multifunctioning processes. Animals, plants and microbes are consummate engineers; they have found what works, what is appropriate, and most importantly, what is resilient for all not just for each of them. For example, biomimicry helps create a solar cell that is inspired by a tree and its leaf with chloroplast and chlorophyll, a passive cooling system for buildings inspired by a termite mound; many species can accumulate, store and share water from air, or developed new strategies for restoring degraded ecosystems. People are nature, and human cultures with long term residency in particular ecosystems hold crucial (traditional) knowledge for living sustainably in each context.
Pre Requisites: