prevent fracture
lesson plan
kingfisher
sense movement
water conservation
leaves
efficient routing
biomimicry videos
produce color
training
healthy soil
protect from floods
Life on earth presents elegant solutions to many of the challenges that designers and innovators face every day. Explore AskNature to find biological strategies, inspired ideas, and resources relative to your own innovation challenges, so you can begin to emulate the time-tested forms, processes, and systems that already thrive in balance with Earth’s complex systems.
Biological Strategies
Nature’s refined solutions, mapped to your design challenges.
African wild dogs use versatile voting system
African wild dogs make group decisions through versatile voting system
Biofilms protect bacterial communities
Bacteria rely on social cooperation to produce a biofilm that protects the community
Ant colonies respond quickly to distribute foodTemnothorax ants
Ant colonies distribute food effectively and safely after famine using a decentralized response to quickly spread food.
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Inspired Ideas
Design solutions to human challenges, inspired by biological strategies.
Bullitt CenterThe Bullitt Foundation
The greenest commercial building in the world
Nucleário
Biodegradable device that surrounds and protects newly planted seedlings to increase survival rate.
Hairy self-cleaning surfacesUniversity of Florida, Sigmund's Group, Department of Materials Science and Engineering
Non-stick surface without chemicals
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Resources
Everything you need to learn and teach about biomimicry and life centered design.
Exploring the Way Life WorksMahlon Hoagland & Bert Dodson
A unique biology textbook exploring the deep patterns in how life operates.
Why Birds are the World’s Best EngineersThe New York Times
A nest is a "disordered stick bomb," resilient in ways humans have hardly begun to understand, much less emulate.
Introduction to the Nature JournalSmithsonian Learning Lab
Through two lesson plans, students will learn to use telling details to describe an animal. They then will take notes while watching zoo web cams to help them write descriptions of what they observed.
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Collections
Themed clusters of strategies, ideas, and resources, curated by you.
30 Animals That Made Us Smarter
A collection to complement the animals and innovations featured on the BBC podcast, “30 Animals That Made Us Smarter"
Resilient Food Systems
Biological strategies could provide inspiration for how to improve our food systems at both minute and systemic scales.
How Does Nature Protect From Pathogens?
The invasion of the invisible is on everyone’s mind. Could a bat’s immune system or another organism’s adaptation hold the key to protecting ourselves from viruses?
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How might we …
Here are a few Biological Strategies to get you started …
Photosynthesis converts solar energy into chemical energyplants
Photosynthesis in plants converts solar energy into chemical energy using electrons and protons from water.
Pupil enables clear vision in extreme light conditionsTokay Gecko, ,
The pupil of nocturnal geckos enables clear vision in extreme light conditions by becoming very large at night and constricting to a thin slit with several pinholes during the day.
Leg hairs prevent spider from sticking to its own webSpinybacked orbweaver, Golden Silk Orbweaver
Leg hairs of orb-weaver spiders allow it to build its web without getting stuck.
From permaculture to Velcro® to winglets, humans have been looking to nature for inspiration for as long as we’ve been inventing. Inspired Ideas catalog the stories behind realized and conceptual product, service, and system components that have their roots in biology …
The Land Institute permacultureThe Land Institute
Perennial grain cropping mimics natural ecosystem behavior.
Concentrated solar plantMassachusetts Institute of Technology
Optimal arrangement of solar array mirrors based on Fibonacci spirals.
Anti-icing coating prevents frost and ice buildupRykaczewski Research Group, Arizona State University
Coating infused with antifreeze reduces frost and ice accumulation
Interest in biomimicry has skyrocketed over the past decade, and there are now thousands of Resources—including books, articles, videos, lesson plans, groups, training programs, and more—available to folks who want to learn, teach, and practice this valuable problem solving approach. Get started with a few of our favorites here …
Sharing Biomimicry with Young PeopleBiomimicry Institute
An orientation to biomimicry for K-12 teachers and others who work with youth.
The world is poorly designed. But copying nature helps.Vox and 99% Invisible
This 6 minute video introduces biomimicry, the application of biomimicry at different scales, and connections to the circular economy.
Biomimicry Basics: How to Innovate Using Nature’s StrategiesDenise DeLuca
In this 4-hour online course you will learn a step by step method for turning nature's strategies into innovative design solutions using the biomimicry design spiral.
Collections tie together Biological Strategies, Inspired Ideas, and Resources into themes that are often correlated with a particular human challenge, geographic area, or set of environmental conditions. Check out a few of our favorites and then start your own …
Chemistry of Nature
How can we learn from nature to create materials without using life-threatening chemicals and high temperatures?
Solving for a Changing Climate
The science is clear, and so is our imperative. What can we learn from nature as we design solutions for mitigating, adapting to, and reversing climate change?
Cooling Down In The Heat
From sweating, to panting, to pulling water from air, living systems rely on a number of forms and processes to stay cool and hydrated.
“Nature is constantly innovating, endlessly experimenting and ever reinventing itself in the face of new challenges.
From materials and products to business models, biomimicry offers a fresh lens for all the dreamers and doers remaking the man-made world.”
Angela Nahikian, Steelcase
