How can we build a sustainable society? From designing cities and technologies that use green energy, to health care and agriculture that can sustain billions, the sustainability challenges that face us today are immense. The field of biomimicry seeks solutions to such problems by looking to the diverse ways in which organisms have adapted to varied and sometimes extreme environments. With over 1.3 million described species (and likely over 8 million in existence), chances are a species out there has evolved some solution to a particular problem. But how do we go about figuring out which species this might be? And which trait holds the adaptation in which we are interested? What might be some limitations associated with copying this adaptation--how might we build on it instead? This course teaches bio-inspired approaches to sustainability solutions. Throughout the course, students work in teams of complementary expertise to identify a sustainability problem, research a relevant biological system, and build a prototype bio-inspired solution to their focal problem.This is a Grand Challenge Curriculum course.
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