Links to Navigate this Course

Module 0: Get Started

Module 1: Biomimicry Basics

Module 2: Nature's Ubiquitous Pattern

Module 3: Nature's Functions + Strategies

Module 4: Nature's Unifying Patterns

HELLO!

Watch this short welcome video (~2mins) from me, your instructor, Cindy Gilbert.

Transcript for this video.

About Us

Feel free to peruse my faculty bio to learn more about my background and my work as the founding director of the Sustainable Design Program at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD) where I lead a fully online Master of Arts in Sustainable Design (MASD) degree that hosts several courses focused on or underpinned by biomimicry (that are also open to the public). If you'd like even more details about my background (really?!), feel free to check out my LinkedIn profile and to follow me on Twitter (@alulaconsulting). Interested in learning more about the MASD program? Sign up for updates here.

I'd also like to introduce to your course mentors, Alyssa Hayes and Shannon Reece. The mentors will help to foster engagement in the classroom and to provide design insights. Both mentors are recent graduates of the Master of Arts in Sustainable Design program at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. They are well-versed in sustainability and biomimicry.

Please note that the courses we offer in the MASD program look and feel very different from this Biomimicry MOOC (Massive Open Online Course), as all of MCAD's online classes are capped at 18 students ensuring that courses are high-touch and interactive between instructors and students. Shannon, Alyssa and I will be doing our best to make this course interactive but we'll have >1,000 students to work with so we ask that each of you work hard to engage with and help each other to get the most out of this learning experience. It'll be an exciting learning adventure for you, the mentors and myself!

Course Description

Nature offers boundless inspiration for sustainable design, but how do we access the wealth of biological information available and apply it effectively to design? This course provides an introduction to biomimicry, a new discipline that emulates nature's best ideas and blueprints in order to solve human design challenges. Each week you’ll get outside to explore nature and learn a key biomimicry design concept that you’ll then apply to develop a novel biomimetic design.

Learning Outcomes

After the completion of this course, you will be able to:

Define and apply key concepts employed in biomimetic design through the experience of creating novel biomimetic designs.
Differentiate between nature’s unifying patterns, strategies and functions, and apply them to human-made designs.
Observe nature and conduct research to learn from nature through real-world, outdoor observations.
Employ the biological solutions database AskNature.org to serve as a research tool for design challenges.

What a Wonderful World

The learning outcomes and navigation video all sound a bit formal and dull. I think this amazing BBC video (~2mins) more properly kicks off our biomimicry adventure together. It is narrated by David Attenborough and published by the BBC in 2011.

No transcript for this video (music to What a Wonderful World).

What to Do Next

Head on over to the Start Here: Course Information page to dig into the details about what to expect from this course and from your instructor throughout the course.