A 3-year project begun in 2018 — to begin integrating biologically-inspired STEM education into the European Union — is now beginning to come to fruition. Funded by the EU, The Center for Learning with Nature has been working with five non-profit educational organizations from five different countries (the United Kingdom, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and the Netherlands) to spearhead this process. There are now 20 educational modules available, for free, for teachers of middle and high school students (biolearn.eu). The modules are translated into the five languages of the participating countries. In March 2020, The Center for Learning with Nature helped lead a training of dozens of teachers from each participating country. Additional teacher trainings involving dozens of educators in each participating country are now underway to spread training and resources further into each respective country’s educational system. Here’s what a few teachers have said about the project so far:
“If you want to see the happy faces of students who finally can try out theoretical knowledge in practice on many examples, they can research and look for new solutions to the problems they set for themselves, students who have turned from passive and bored to active ones, because something is happening in the classroom, the biomimicry project is made for you.”
“Students have shown huge interest in biomimicry, due to the engaging nature of the subject and how this links in to everyday life.”
“Absolutely fascinating and it has inspired me to use it in teaching.”
“Whilst the resources draw on, or make links to the relevant science curriculum for England, they offer authentic and crucially well considered activities to broaden student’s understanding of the complexity of the sustainability problem.”
The project has launched tremendous interest and activity around biomimicry in the educational systems for young people across five countries in the EU, and additional projects with similar goals are already underway now in other EU countries.
Director Sam Stier leads an activity with 30 European K-12 teachers examining the strength of the curves of trees, using the photoelastic effect.
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