Collaborative Research: Enhancing the Pedagogy of Bio-Inspired Design in an Engineering Curriculum

2020年的工程师不仅要提供技术独创性，还要适应不断发展的环境，同时能够在一个学科的狭窄范围之外运作，并在解决未来复杂问题时以道德为基础。为了解决未来工程师的能力，本科教育必须培养学生不仅要解决超越学科界限的工程挑战，而且要跨越技术和非技术界限进行沟通，转移知识和合作。培养工程师这些能力的一种方法是在工程课程中教授仿生学或生物灵感设计，这与专业实践相关，并为复杂的跨学科问题提供情感挂钩。本研究旨在通过创建教学资源来解决本科生在多学科设计创新方面的培训需求，这些资源提供了大量可以在自然界中找到的设计实例，并构建了发现和知识转移过程，以便这些自然设计可以用来激发工程解决方案。该研究预计将产生知识，将提高学生的学习，STEM素养，跨学科思维和创新能力。随着越来越多的工程专业学生接受多学科设计创新的培训，他们将创造出为社会创造可持续未来的解决方案。生物启发设计支持思想的多样性和包容性，并将吸引具有不同背景的女性和少数民族学生追求STEM领域。

The engineer of 2020 is not only expected to offer technical ingenuity but also to adapt to a continuously evolving environment while simultaneously being able to operate outside the narrow limits of one discipline and be ethically grounded in solving the complex problems of the future. To address the competencies of the future engineer, undergraduate education must train students not only to address engineering challenges that transcend disciplinary boundaries, but also to communicate, transfer knowledge, and collaborate across technical and non-technical boundaries. One approach to train engineers in these competencies is teaching biomimicry or bio-inspired design in an engineering curriculum, which offers relevance to professional practice as well as an affective hook to frame complex, cross-disciplinary problems. This research aims to address the need for undergraduate student training in multidisciplinary design innovation through the creation of instructional resources that provide exposure to the abundance of design examples that can be found in nature, and scaffolding the discovery and knowledge transfer processes such that those natural designs can be used to inspire engineering solutions. The research is expected to produce knowledge that will improve student learning, STEM literacy, cross-disciplinary thinking, and capacity for innovation. As more engineering students are trained in multidisciplinary design innovation, they will create solutions that result in a sustainable future for society. Bio-inspired design supports diversity and inclusion of ideas, and will attract women and minority students with diverse backgrounds to pursue STEM fields.