MCAD offers free, open course on Biomimicry

The Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD) is proud to announce that we are partnering with Canvas.net to offer a FREE, open online course for the first time entitled, Biomimicry: A Sustainable Design Methodology.

Photo of bird with enrollment information

This course will be a fun introduction to biomimicry, a sustainability framework where we learn from nature’s best design ideas to help us solve human design challenges. SIGN UP FOR FREE!

Course dates

The course will run for 4 weeks from March 23-April 20, 2015.

Course description

Nature offers boundless inspiration for sustainable design, but how do we access the wealth of biological information available and apply it effectively to design? This course provides an introduction to the tools and principles of biomimicry, a new discipline that emulates nature’s best ideas and blueprints in order to solve human design challenges. Each week you’ll get outside to explore nature and learn a key biomimicry design concept that you’ll then apply to develop a novel biomimetic design.

At the completion of the course, students will have:

Defined and applied biomimicry concepts, tools, and principles by creating novel biomimetic designs.
Differentiated between nature’s design principles, strategies, functions, and patterns to apply them to human-made designs.
Observed nature and conducted research to learn from nature through real-world, outdoor observations.
Employed the biological solutions database AskNature.org to serve as a research tool for design challenges.

Course instructor

The course will be led by the director of MCAD’s Sustainable Design Program, Cindy Gilbert. Learn more about Cindy’s biomimicry background.

Register

Course registration is open. Sign up for FREE today.

Questions?

If you have questions about this course or MCAD’s Sustainable Design Program, please contact us, we’d love to hear from you!