Nature Inspires Innovation in Students
February 10, 2009 | Levent OZLER
For the students in ASU's InnovationSpace program, the ability to field academic curve balls is a course requirement.
For two semesters, upper-division majors in industrial design, visual communication design, business and engineering leap their disciplinary hurdles and team up to develop new product ideas.
In the course of their studies, engineering students are introduced to such topics as product branding.
Visual communication students attend lectures on supply-chain management.
Product designers learn the ABCs of circuit boards and stress calculations.
But tutorials for students on butterfly coloration? Burdocks? Beetles?
Looking to nature for new ways to solve human problems is the foundation of an emerging discipline known as biomimicry.
In the fall 2008 semester, InnovationSpace embarked on a major initiative to introduce the principles of biomimicry into the program's curriculum.
As partners in this endeavor, the program enlisted biologists and engineers from the Montana-based Biomimicry Institute as well as biology graduate students from ASU's School of Life Sciences.
more: asunews.asu.edu/20090206_biomimicry (108)
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