Biodesign for Sustainable and Interdisciplinary Education

Description

What if sustainability could be taught not only through theory, but through materials, experimentation, and design?

In this sense, biodesign can offer a creative and future-oriented way to explore sustainability in education.

Working with living organisms, biological processes, and low-impact materials, it opens up new possibilities for teaching environmental issues through experimentation, design, and interdisciplinary inquiry.

This course introduces educators to biodesign as an innovative way to connect art, science, and sustainability in school settings.

It’s the perfect chance to explore a fresh interdisciplinary hands-on perspective, especially for secondary, higher, and STEAM-oriented education.

Making topics such as climate change, biotechnology, and material innovation more accessible by linking them to hands-on exploration and creative inquiry, through this approach students are not only learning about sustainability, but also imagining and testing new ways of responding to it.

Throughout the course, participants will first explore the foundations of biodesign and its growing relevance in contemporary society (starting from its connection to the pressing issue of climate change).

Through examples from current practice, including student projects, they will examine how biomaterials are already influencing design, production, and environmental thinking.

Practical experimentation will also be at the heart of the whole programme. Participants will engage in practical activities such as creating new materials from domestic residues or working with bacteria to develop simple bio-based products.

The course is designed to boost curiosity, creativity, and interdisciplinary thinking, while also showing participants how biodesign can be adapted to different educational contexts.

Furthermore, the course will open space for reflection on wider topics such as synthetic biology, ethical relationships with other living species, and the role of biolabs (spaces where these practices are best carried out) for learning and innovation.

Participants will also be encouraged to develop a biodesign-related activity in their own contexts, or to include the “Biodesign Challenge” (a major student award in the field) within their educational structure.

By the end of the course, participants will have gained a clearer understanding of biodesign as an educational approach.

They will leave with practical ideas for implementing it in their classrooms, offering students meaningful interdisciplinary and sustainability learning experiences.

Concept by Andrea Bandoni

Learning outcomes

The course will help participants to:

• Distinguish biodesign from other nature-based approaches (biomimicry, biofilia, etc.) and explain its potential for reducing ecological impact;
• Integrate design, biology, ethics, and creativity by framing classroom activities around themes such as systems thinking, bioethics, and interdependence;
• Design and facilitate hands-on biodesign activities using accessible materials and available structures;
• Use speculative biodesign methods to explore possible biotechnological and sustainable futures;
• Develop project-based learning experiences that engage students in real-world challenges through biodesign;
• Reflect on how themes such as systems thinking, interdependence, and bioethics can be introduced in age-appropriate and meaningful ways.

Tentative schedule

Day 1 – Introduction to the course and to biodesign

• Introduction to the course, the school, and the external week activities;
• Icebreaker activities;
• Presentations of the participants’ schools;
• Introduction to Biodesign as an interdisciplinary educational approach.

Day 2 – Biodesign basics: materials, climate, and interdependence

• Biodesign in the context of climate change and sustainability education;
• Design with living organisms such as trees, algae, mycelium, and bacteria;
• Design with organic debris such as coffee waste, egg shells, and fruit peels;
• Systemic thinking, ethics, and interdependence: collaborating with other species;
• Biodesign and industry: present and future.

Day 3 – Biomaterials in practice

• What is a biomaterial? Properties, uses, and examples;
• Exploring different biomaterials: colour, flexibility, resistance, and texture;
• Biomaterial recipes: “cooking” with organic “waste” to create DIY (Do It Yourself) materials;
• Cultivating materials: the example of bacterial cellulose (“kombucha leather”).

Day 4 – Speculative biodesign and biolabs

• Speculative Biodesign as a tool to develop critical and future-oriented thinking in students;
• Overview of key approaches such as Synthetic Biology and Biofabrication;
• Practicing future thinking: exercises applied to environmental and social issues;
• The Biodesign Challenge Competition: analysis of selected student projects;
• From DIY labs to Biolabs. How to implement Biodesign in your school (optional visit to a local biolab or virtual exploration of lab environments).

Day 5 – Final delivery

• Designing a biodesign activity for participants’ own teaching context;
• Presentation and discussion of ideas;
• Reflection on achievements, challenges, and possible improvements;
• Final exchange on transferability and classroom application.

Day 6 – Course closure and cultural activities

• Course evaluation: round-up of acquired competencies, feedback, and discussion;
• Awarding of the course Certificate of Attendance;
• Excursion and other external cultural activities.

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