Script: Welcome back to Ingenia’s Design Center! Does anyone remember what biomimicry means? Pause for student answers. Yes, biomimicry is when people take inspiration from animals and plants to copy, or mimic, their designs.
Designers often work with engineers and scientists to collaborate on the designs of new products. Can anyone give an example of biomimicry? Pause for student answers. May include products explored in the previous lesson such as airplanes, velcro, etc.
Today, you will be assisting Ingenia’s Technical Designers and Textile Designers in creating new safety gear for Ingenia’s safety officers that is inspired by an animal. Do you know what a textile is? (Wait for student response) A textile is any fabric or cloth. It can be made of many different materials and use lots of different patterns, colors, and textures.
Today, you’ll first act as a technical designer to use the plans you made in Activity 3 to create your designs. Then, you’ll act as textile designers to add colors, patterns, and/or textures to your creation. Are you ready to get started?
Read Aloud [5 mins]: Let’s review a bit about how animals protect themselves to inspire our designs. One of the ways many animals protect themselves is through camouflage, or blending into their environments so they are hard to see.
Discuss:
Students will work independently to create their design of a piece of safety gear that uses biomimicry.
5 min Script: We’ve learned a lot about biomimicry, or how people use inspiration from animals and nature to make or improve technologies. Today, you’ll use what you know about biomimicry and your plans from Activity 3 to create your bio-inspired safety gear. The safety gear will need to be something a person could wear to protect them from danger. Your safety gear can either stand out by using colors, patterns, and textures to signal a warning or blend in using camouflage.
40 min Allow students to create their bio-inspired designs based on the plan page they completed. Walk around to support students in creating the designs and to ask questions like:
When they are done creating their bio-designed safety gear, encourage students to try it on and test it out.
Students will work independently to improve their safety gear to apply concepts of textile design like color, pattern, and/or texture.
5 min Script: Now that you have a piece of bio-inspired safety gear, you’ll work as a textile designer to add color, pattern, and/or texture to your design. Think about your design: is it made to warn predators away or to camouflage and hide you? (wait for student response) If you want to warn predators away, you may want to use bright colors or patterns and pointy or rough textures. If you want to camouflage and blend in, you may want to think about the colors and textures in our classroom or outside and use colors, patterns, and textures that match those. (Give some examples of color, pattern, and/or texture choices that would camouflage with your classroom).
25 min Allow students to improve their bio-inspired designs by applying textile design concepts. Walk around to support students in creating the designs and to ask questions like:
Sharing and Discussion [10 mins]:
Students will each share their designs and participate in a discussion. Moderate the discussion using one or more of the following prompts as each student shares:
Students should bring home their bio-inspired safety-gear designs to show their families. Parents and caregivers can be encourage to talk to students about their designs using one or more of the following prompts:
Students can be encouraged to continue iterating on their designs at home. Parents can provide basic craft materials and recycled materials so that students can continue improving their designs.
