In this issue

 
 
 
 
 
 


Upcoming Events
2012 Biomimicry Specialty Certificate Program, Application Period Opens
August 16, 2011
Designing for Sustainability through Biomimicry, Sustainable Silicon Valley
September 8, 2011
Greenbuild 2011, Toronto, Canada, Tim McGee and Taryn Mead
October 4-7, 2011
How Biomimicry Can Revolutionize Education, Bioneers, San Francisco,
Dayna Baumeister, Megan Schuknecht, Sam Stier
October 17, 2011
Eindhoven biomimicry exhibit, Milieu Educatie Centrum, Genneperweg 145 Eindhoven
July 18-October 31, 2011


2012 Biomimicry Professional Certificate Program, Application Period Opens
November 14, 2011

 
 
 


Follow Us Online

 
 
The Biomimicry Institute Newsletter - August 2011

Student Innovators: We Challenge You to Tackle Climate Change!
 


Instead of talking about reducing greenhouse gas emissions, we encourage you to do something about it! This year's Biomimicry Student Design Challenge focuses on using biomimicry to design an energy efficient solution to reduce greenhouse gases in your local environment.
The Challenge is open to any student enrolled at the undergraduate or graduate level, and participants will have access to a variety of resources from The Biomimicry Institute (TBI) including an overview of biomimicry by Janine Benyus, an overview of the biomimicry methodology, an introduction to Life’s Principles, consultations with Biologists at the Design Table, and more.

NEW: Winning entries will receive cash prizes! Complete details of the challenge, including guidelines for submissions and judging criteria, will be available on our site soon.
 
A Biomimicry Education Fellow Goes the Distance for Sustainability

What will offset about ¾ of a ton of CO2, burn 50,000 calories, and travel 1,000 miles in the meantime? Cindy Gilbert, Biomimicry Education Fellow, will be “Riding the Talk” this September. Cindy teaches Biomimicry for Designers at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design (a Biomimicry Affiliate school) and directs MCAD’s Sustainable Design Online program. She will be biking 1,000 miles from Montana to Minnesota in an effort to raise need-based scholarship funds for students in her program as well as to raise awareness about nature-inspired design and current issues in sustainability. She would love your support and help spreading the word about her Ride the Talk fundraising campaign. Be sure to catch her updates from the road.
 
Follow Janine Benyus on a Biomimicry Journey through Africa in Second Nature 
 
Previously screened at film festivals, our documentary Second Nature: The Biomimicry Evolution, is now available for purchase online.

In the short film, Janine Benyus and TBI Executive Director Bryony Schwan guide you through the wilds of South Africa to illustrate how organisms in the natural world can teach us how to be more efficient and sustainable engineers, chemists, designers, and business leaders.

We are in the process of developing an educational DVD that will include discussion guides for youth and older students, as well as for community groups. You can sign up to receive information about the educational DVD here, and we'll let you know when it's available.

Register for Biomimicry Workshop and Receive 20% Discount off Bioneers
 
Join us at Bioneers for a biomimicry education workshop on Monday, October 17 at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, CA. The workshop, How Biomimicry Can Revolutionize Education: Fostering Collaboration and Connecting Young People to Nature, will feature presentations, interactive discussions, and hands-on activities with Dr. Dayna Baumeister, Megan Schuknecht, and Sam Stier, and biomimicry educators from K-12, university, and non-formal education.

The workshop is offered as a post-Bioneers intensive. The Bioneers Conference, October 14-16, also features a plenary session with Dr. Baumeister and a panel on Applying Nature’s Genius to Business, Government, Policy, and Design. You can register for both the Bioneers conference and the education intensive at the same time. Receive a 20% discount on registration by using the coupon code Ecology20.

Don't Forget: Complete Our Survey and We'll Donate to Grizzly Habitat Preservation
 
We originally planned to reveal our newsletter survey results this month, but we'd like to give folks extra time to provide feedback. The more people who participate, the more we can donate to the grizzly bear habitat conservation group Vital Ground. (We'll give the group $1 for every completed survey we receive.) And you'll also be entered to win a signed copy of Janine Benyus' groundbreaking book Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature.

We hope that you'll tell us what you like about the newsletter, what needs improvement, and more about how you like to receive/share information on biomimicry. The survey should take about five minutes to complete.

Thanks for your help!

AskNature Featured Product
The Humpback Fin


Surfers, take note! There’s a new product that includes the tubercle technology pioneered by WhalePower Corporation. At the recent Biomimicry Education Summit in Cleveland, Ohio, participants enjoyed a presentation by Dr. Frank Fish from WhalePower and the Liquid Life Laboratory of West Chester University, Pennsylvania. Dr. Fish told us about a surfboard fin by Fluid Earth called, appropriately, the Humpback Fin. According to the company’s website, adding Tubercle Technology to the leading edge of the fin “delivers unbelievably powerful bottom turns that launch you down the wave with the force of a breaching humpback!”

Volunteer Spotlight: Arno Vlooswijk
 
Arno V., cooling off on holiday
Special thanks to AskNature contributor Arno Vlooswijk for his work and good humor. Arno is a thermographer from The Netherlands, and you can find some of his warm thermographic images on AskNature. See more of his work at World of Warmth. It was Arno's idea to put together the Stay Warm and Cooling Down sets of featured strategies, and he provided images, papers, and ideas for those sets. For our 2010 Student Design Challenge, Arno gave a guest lecture showing many of his images, and one of them inspired the winning design. Arno is an adviser and researcher for Triple E, which is an organization that behaves like a mediator between nature and economics; the triple Es are Economy, Ecology, and Experience.

Biomimicry Research and Design News

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