Innovation inspired by Nature, with its focus on sustainability, unique avenue towards innovation, inherent appreciation of Nature, and highly engaging content, is a useful and vitally important part of the modern education of university students, in departments ranging across engineering, biology, education, sociology, economics, business, architecture, design, and environmental studies.
From training faculty to developing curricula and writing textbooks, The Center for Learning with Nature has helped integrate Nature-inspired innovation into university level education a number of different ways. To learn more, read on:
- New College/High School Introduction to Engineering Textbook
Introduction to Engineering: A Life-Centered Approach introduces and explores the major subfields of engineering with a thematic focus on bioinspired innovation and sustainability. The online textbook leverages the rich interactive possibilities of digital media by integrating text with stunning images, engaging videos, and student interactives.
In addition, an accompanying Teachers Guide is chock full of fresh exercises, demonstrations, and labs designed to reinforce ideas from the text in ways that create delight, intrigue and ongoing curiosity in students. Labs include, for example, making the raw material of cement and concrete out of car exhaust, using a carbon-negative commercialized method inspired by corals; making a hydrophobic material coating using Life-friendly chemistry that is an alternative to PFAS (forever chemicals); and exploring anti-counterfeiting technologies and alternatives to toxic dyes by making iridescent chocolate, using structural color approaches inspired by Morpho butterflies and other species.
The textbook is based on a course developed for the engineering college at Texas Tech University that became required for all engineering students there.
In keeping with being an introduction, the course material is not highly technical and can also be used in high schools and with non-majors.
Professors interested in a desk copy can request this here.
Note this is a digital-only textbook.
Some student reviews of the course:
“Taking this course will dramatically alter the way that I perceive the natural world and engineering problems for the rest of my life.” – Ethan B.
“If I could take this course again I gladly would because it has been my most impactful class I have ever taken. I’ve just learned so much after taking this course. I will always use bio inspired approaches wherever I go, because it is just so useful.” – Andrew A.
“This course has changed my whole idea of the purpose of engineering. Whenever I come across a problem in my pursuit of studying engineering, I will now add to my thought process the possibility that nature might offer design inspiration, and I will look to the natural world for possible blueprints to our human issues and problems.” – Avery M.
“There are so many things that nature can do already that we are not able to do yet. There are so many ways that nature can be the solution to our problems. All we have to do is look. That’s what this bio-inspired engineering class taught me. The capstone project really pushed me to think outside the box and to look to the outside world for inspiration. I admit, it was kind of tough to find solutions to our problems. However, once we started to ask the right questions, everything fell into place.” – Briana B.
“Bio-inspired approaches is a great way of establishing a framework to a project. It gives you something to research about, and as you research it keeps your ideas flowing as you learn more and more things. This course had a major impact on how I think about engineering. It has taught me that it is not just about inventing something, but it is also about how it can be beneficial and non-harmful to the consumers and to nature.” – Chesia M.
“Looking back on the class my view on engineering and innovation has been greatly altered. Before this class I would look to past human engineering to try and find a solution to problems presented to me. I never looked at nature as a source of inspiration to solve problems we face. I didn’t think of nature as
the evolving entity as it is, it was more of just a place I could go to relax. It has already faced many of the problems we face and ones we haven’t even dreamt about yet. I really notice the difference in mindset when I go on walks. I can see endless systems working together to form the bigger picture.” – Travis O.
“This course has opened my eyes to how much possibility there is in nature. When I first started the class as a CS major I questioned why I would need to take a class that is related to biology. This changed throughout the year as I saw nature’s habits being used in code. I always thought that the computer side of engineering had no use for biology, but I have changed my opinion on the matter.” – Nathan R.
“My previous engineering courses never required this amount of creativity and thanks to the help of my professor, my imagination has thrived more than ever.” – Jacob V.
“One thing that I learned in this class is that if we want to survive as long as nature, we have to start looking at it from a different perspective. We have to start taking inspiration from it. We have to start letting nature teach us and we need to be willing to learn.” – Briana B.
- Faculty Professional Development
Many universities and faculty are interested in integrating bioinspiration into their curricula and teaching practices, but need intellectual support to help make this happen. The Center for Learning with Nature’s director Sam Stier has provided professional development on bioinspiration to faculty members at engineering colleges (e.g., Whitacre College of Engineering at Texas Tech University), design colleges (e.g., Otis College of Art and Design), and education colleges (e.g., University of Kentucky).
Along with colleagues at the University of Louisiana, Georgia Tech, Villanova, and others, The Center for Learning with Nature is currently leading an effort to reach more faculty teaching biology to undergraduates (in biology and education departments). In general, biology professors are underrepresented in bioinspired research. Meanwhile, bioinspired innovation has potential to improve biology education in numerous ways, from engaging student interest, helping students better appreciate the modern relevance of biology, and demonstrating the interdisciplinary nature of biology. Our current initiative to reach biology faculty, “Integrating Bio-inspired Innovation Into Life Science Education Through Interdisciplinary Communities of Practice”, is funded by the National Science Foundation. This project has identified challenges to integrating bioinspiration into undergraduate biology education as well as opportunities for improving diversity, equity and inclusion through the integration of bioinspiration into undergraduate biology education. The project has also identified best pedagogical practices for integrating bioinspiration into undergraduate biology education. Finally, the project has put together a curated list of educational resources to assist professors in integrating bioinspiration into undergraduate biology education. Uniquely, this project includes a focus on education college faculty teaching undergrads life science education for K-12 settings, an important leverage point for influencing culture at large and a pipeline of future STEM undergrads more specifically.
- University course and materials development
In recognition of the importance of bioinspired innovation to modern technological development, colleges and universities across the United States and around the world increasingly include bioinspiration in their educational offerings, from Harvard’s Wyss Institute of Biologically Inspired Engineering, CalTech’s Center for Bioinspired Engineering, Georgia Tech’s Center for Biologically Inspired Design, and the Imperial College of London’s Centre for Bio-inspired Technology. Many universities and faculty are interested in integrating bioinspiration into their curricula and teaching practices, but need course development and educational resources to help make this happen. The Center for Learning with Nature’s director Sam Stier has developed courses on bioinspired innovation for Otis College and the Whitacre College of Engineering at Texas Tech University (TTU). The course at TTU is now required for all engineering undergrads, some 2000 students per year, is taught all year long, and has about 12 sections and 4-5 instructors.
With a strong emphasis on sustainability, the course at TTU covers a wide range of topics in bioinspiration, including bioinspired materials, structures, automation, energy, health, systems, computing, and infrastructure. The course is also comprised of labs, hands-on activities, lectures, and textbook readings.
The new textbook designed for Texas Tech University’s course on bioinspired design at the Whitacre College of Engineering covers a wide range of engineering subdisciplines, including computer science, mechanical engineering, materials, structures, health, industrial and civil engineering
