Megan Clendenan

An introductory resource for engaging middle-grade to high-school kids in the wonders of nature and its application to solving the needs of increasingly industrialized nations. The book is divided into chapters which feature topics to explain what biomimicry is and how that knowledge can inform sustainable development in the world's inventions (Inventions Gone Wild, Nature As Engineer, Asking Advice from Nature, and Reducing Our Footprint).

There are very engaging references to inventions that were inspired by the natural world: Velcro™, a familiar item now used widely, was developed in the 1940's after George de Mestral was inspired by his examination of the seed coats from the Burdock plant, for example. Another fascinating example refers to the inspiration of copying the mosquito's proboscis to develop needles that deliver less-painful injections.

Despite many excellent examples, the book presentation is flawed. The marketing info suggested it was aimed at middle-grade and higher school-age kids, but the information is often too cursory. Too many of the cited developments lack the details to illustrate the interesting connections between natural sources and sophisticated inventions. The authors missed effectively intriguing students by skimping on the depth in each topic.

A further discrepancy was the absence of figure legends and image descriptions. Full-colour photographs appeared throughout the book, but the facts being presented were not identified in the pictures. This book was tantalizing and certainly engaged the kids to whom I was hoping to introduce biomimicry. However, we spent more time following up in other references (and on the internet) to expand the history of the discoveries which were only briefly mentioned biomimicry inventions.… (mais)