One of our favorite subjects to bring on tour with us is the topic of biomimicry. The term biomimicry was coined by an eco-saint named Jane Benyus. She has written numerous books (Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature) on the subject and been on the cover of TIME magazine. Her idea of biomimicry is to emulate nature in order to solve the world’s problems in a sustainable way.

We have a world filled with people and we think we know everything and if we don’t then there is at least another human we can ask. The idea of biomimicry is to accept that fact that humans do not know everything there is to know about solving the problems of today. There is 3.5 billion years of knowledge surrounding us each and everyday we walk out into nature. Did you ever wonder how a tree pumps thousands of gallons of water up it’s trunk without any pumps, or how a forest can trap all the energy it needs from the sun it needs, or how the rainforest is filled with beautiful colors on butterflies and flowers with no toxic paints. There are thousands of ways nature has one upped us in the area of design and functionality. The golden orb spider has created a web with a material that is twice as strong as steal. A rainforest throws away all of it’s dead parts and then turns it back into energy to grow new life. Nature is a beautiful cycle of an expert design artist that we humans can learn from in so many problems we face today and will face in the future.

During our tours we feel biomimicry is a way for kids to gain some respect for nature. It is in seeing that nature did it better than we have that the students begin to want to learn more from the natural world and not feel as detached. When they see how well nature does to keep itself going, the kids return back home paying more attention to nature’s impact on their daily lives and vice-versa. This is the education we feel we need to give the youth of today.

We take the topic of biomimicry into many different activities in the field where we allow the kids to bring different articles they find and we play games that are geared towards the different designs of biomimicry.

Help us spread that word that it is not just learning about nature but it is time to learn from nature!