There are many challenges to life in the natural world and nature has long been experimenting with solutions to those challenges. The creatures that survived over millions of years are those that evolved the best solutions for their own environmental challenges.
So why not look at those solutions and apply them to our present day challenges? Well, that's exactly what Biomimicry does. To solve a lot of design problems, scientists are copying nature.
For example, Japan's Shinkansen train, the bullet train, had to be redesigned because in its original form it was too loud when it rushed out of a tunnel. One scientist, who happened to be a bird watcher, solved the problem by turning his attention to birds.
Inspired by the pointed beak of the Kingfisher and the rounded belly of the Adélie penguin, he redesigned the train to have a long, much more pointed nose. And the loud noise went down!
This week we discussed adaptations and to do that we created a board game. It doesn't have a name yet. Any ideas?
Here are the kids play-testing our adaptation game.
We don't have photos of the part where they have to play Charades to communicate with their team members. You'll just have to picture it yourselves!