Introduction
“Look! Look! Look deep into nature and you will understand everything.” - Albert Einstein
It’s the first day of school and my kindergarten students are beginning to flood into the classroom. Some students are extremely excited, while others are shy and nervous, and some students fall in between. While their emotions may be different, one thing is completely the same about all of the students: no matter what mode of transportation my students used to arrive at school, they observed their community on their journey to school. But my students may not have realized that a vast majority of the things they see around them have somehow been inspired by nature. From machinery and tools to medicines and treatments, nature has been an inspiration for all of this innovation. Students need to understand the correlation between our lives and nature. The biggest question that I hear in kindergarten is “Why?”. Why is an excavator shaped the way it is? Why does a submarine look like that? Why does a plane look that way? The simple answer is that we have mimicked nature to create these machines. The excavator digging mechanism was influenced by the claw of a mole that easily digs through dirt, the submarine was influenced by a whale that moves quickly underwater, and the jet was influenced by birds that soar through the sky. By beginning to learn about biomimicry starting at a young age, the mindset of the student will begin to change to look at nature as a model, measure, and mentor.
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