See Nature Differently

Challenging times call for new ways of problem solving. Empower your students to reimagine a sustainable world with nature-inspired design.

The Biomimicry Youth Design Challenge is now open for registration for the 2020-2021 school year! While social distancing may be drawing students and teachers apart, the opportunity to grow closer to nature through STEM-rich biomimicry learning has never been more important.

REGISTER NOW

About the Challenge

The Biomimicry Institute’s Youth Design Challenge (YDC) is a project-based learning experience that asks middle and high school teams to design bio-inspired ideas that can provide solutions to the climate crisis. It provides a framework for formal and informal educators to introduce biomimicry as an engineering design strategy, to integrate relevant purposeful STEM experiences, and to provide engaging instruction aligned to the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS).

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How it Works

Register

Teach

Inspire your student team(s) with biomimicry and help them create a bio-inspired design.

Submit

Share your students' best work by submitting to the competition for awards.

“My students learned to delegate responsibilities and to act as a cohesive design team, but probably more importantly, they became aware of design solutions from the natural world.”

Betsy Vinton,
Harley School, Rochester, NY

“The Biomimicry Youth Design Challenge was a fantastic way for my students to think outside-the-box to generate solutions to climate change.”

Lynne Scott
Principia School, St. Louis, MO

“Designing a working prototype empowered [my students] to believe that they are capable of making a significant contribution towards reducing the effects of climate change.”

Kirstin Bullington
Richland Two Institute of Innovation (R2i2), Columbia, SC