Maker Education and Biomimicry: bioinspired hands-on learning
Education is essential for intellectual and personal human development. Nowadays, ed- ucation as we know does not meet the needs of the students, society and the market. The hands-on education methodology adapts to the current needs proposing educational solutions that promote a light, fun and a more productive learning process developing students as critical thinkers that have many different skills and are easily adaptable to different scenarios. The idea of active and fun education came from constructionism and influenced the creation of the Maker Movement, a knowledge-building community. Digital fabrication machines are an important enabler of the Maker Movement, enabling one of the pillars of this movement: hands-on projects that can be shared. Fab Labs are collaborative prototyping spaces, where ideas materialize. It’s a space where people, digital fabrication machines and projects find creativity and collaboration. This work connects hands-on education, the Maker Movement and Fab Labs to biomimetics. The first three are already closely connected, while biomimicry adds ecological thinking. The end result are students and creative projects, that are green, shareable and fun.