The Curriculum
The MIMIC Storyline
Thank you for registering your team(s) for the 2025 Biomimicry Youth Design Challenge!
The next section outlines the MIMIC curriculum broken into steps. We call this the MIMIC Storyline. You can download each individual section of MIMIC, or one PDF containing all five sections. The Handbook will be a crucial tool as you navigate the curriculum; you can download it below.
The 2025 BYDC utilizes The Biomimicry Institute’s comprehensive curriculum from last year’s Challenge. Links are among the handful of updates, but this brilliant resource continues to be the gold standard for inspiring young people about the wonders of nature’s systems.
Storyline Lesson Content:
Each lesson in the MIMIC Storyline
includes the following:
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……that provide the foundation of each lesson and require investigation or problem-solving to answer. As each driving question is answered and understood, it naturally leads to the next driving question, until students have answered the anchor question and completed the Challenge.
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...that provides multiple access points for students to explore the driving questions.
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...that outlines the concepts or processes learned from the activities.
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…that outlines the concepts or processes learned from the activities.
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…that includes suggested videos, interactive websites, lesson plans, background information, articles, and other supportive resources.
Welcome + Start Here:
Get oriented with the YDC Storyline, the MIMIC framework on which it is built, an overview of NGSS alignment, and a brief introduction to biomimicry.
Download the WELCOME document.
Step 1: MOTIVATE
Get inspired! Motivate your team by exploring a local or global problem and introducing the concept of biomimicry. Learn how the unique abilities of organisms help them to survive and thrive, and how people have been inspired by them to design solutions to challenge problems.
Download the MOTIVATE section.
Step 2: INVESTIGATE
Investigate the causes and effects of a problem learners are passionate about. Identify aspirational goals, constraints for the design, and the sustainable impact your solution will need to have to address the problem effectively.
Download the INVESTIGATE section.
Step 3: MATCH
Explore how nature has solved problems similar to yours by matching what you need your design to do with organisms that have similar abilities. Examine why those organisms have those abilities, how those adapted strategies function, and whether they could inspire your solution.
Download the MATCH section.
Step 4: INNOVATE
Create a biomimicry innovation that could help to solve your selected problem. Refine your innovation after evaluating its strengths and weaknesses, both in terms of performance and how well it creates conditions conducive to life.
Download the INNOVATE section.
Step 5: COMMUNICATE
Use the powers of inspiration, storytelling, and scientific evidence to explain how your biomimicry design solves the selected problem and how nature inspired it. Offer gratitude for the natural world for sharing wise strategies to better inform design.
Download the COMMUNICATE section.
