The Chickadee Challenge
A collaboration by the University of Calgary and Sustainable Calgary. Team: Nicolas Leo Moreira, Liam Pond, Parita Patel, Lynny Sharp, Dr. Marjan Eggermont, Dr. Mindi Summers, Tara Meyer, Celia Lee.
Biomimicry: Looking to nature as a source of inspiration for design.
Learn from species around you to imagine healthier, more sustainable ways of living!
The Chickadee Challenge helps you learn how local species respond to life’s challenges like keeping warm, staying cool, or travelling. Your challenge? Imagine how you can mimic their strategies in your daily habits - or how we make our clothes, homes, schools and neighbourhoods. Check out and download our open-source resources below, including: 2 workshops, workshop tools, and activities to help participants prepare and process.
The resources were designed for grades 4-6, but are great for adults too!
“Life’s been on earth for 3.8 billion years and in that time life has learned what works and what’s appropriate here and what lasts here. Perhaps we should be looking at these biological elders, who have figured out how to create a sustainable world. ”
Peruse the activities
Our open-source tools walk you through The Chickadee Challenge - whether you’re an educator or looking to spend your Friday night solving the world’s problems. Activity #1 gets you noticing the nature around you; in Workshop #1, learn about amazing adaptations by southern Alberta species to solve their problems; and in Workshop #2, get to work!
Activity 1: Explore the nature that we share our neighbourhoods with.
Workshop 1: Learn more about local biodiversity through.a series of games and activities.
Workshop 2: Participate in a collaborative bio-inspired design process, giving credit to local species for their inspiration.
Downloadable Tools:
Sketching Activity Video (chickadee)
Sketching Activity Video (shark)
Bonus:
Biomimicry taxonomy video
Explore the Cards
The deck of cards is the gem of The Chickadee Challenge toolkit. It helps you get to know local southern Alberta species - and match their attributes with life challenges, like “staying warm”. From there, challenge yourself to consider how you could use or adapt that same strategy for people.
What challenges do people share with other species?
What strategies do they use to address these challenges?
learning outcomes:
Collaborate with a team to follow a guided approach to create a bio-inspired design
Prototype an idea through a model, drawing, or other piece of work
Share a bio-inspired design with others, and give credit to nature
Identify how to give back to nature with the design idea
Learn more about biomimicry:
See The Chickadee Challenge in action!
Listen…
Team member Liam Pond wrote and performed “Black-Capped Chickadee’s Sunday Afternoon”, inspired by The Chickadee Challenge!
