Biologically !nspired design: A Novel Interdisciplinary Biology-Engineering Curriculum

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Interdisciplinary (99) An interdisciplinary course of biologically inspired design (BID) is being developed for joint enrollment of upper level undergraduates from engineering and biology undergraduates. Using the organismal world as a guide, students are creating solutions to real world problems that have been subjected to traditional engineering methods. The overall course objectives are to: 1) Develop strategies for teaching BID that facilitate collaborations between biological scientists and engineers at the earliest phases of their educational careers. 2) Identify and examine case studies of BID in various fields as a way to identify common principles and approaches, and identify critical areas that require coordination among different practitioners of biologically-inspired design. 3) Devise project-based and problem-based exercises to bring together students in the fields of science, engineering, and design to facilitate the incorporation of biological principles into engineering design. 4) To familiarize scientists and engineers with challenges that are amenable to biologically-inspired approaches. The course is being integrated into both the biology and engineering curricula by cross listing it in biology and several engineering majors. The cross listing is removing barriers to the fulfillment of graduation requirements since it is an upper division elective and offers the same contribution toward graduation as any other elective upper division disciplinary course.