Challenge Details

Key details are outlined below. For additional information, please refer to the Program Handbook.

TIMELINE:

The Youth Design Challenge follows an academic calendar. You can teach the biomimicry project at any time during the year, however entries to the competition are reviewed once annually in late spring.

ANTICIPATED TIMELINE FOR 2023-2024

Registration Opens: Fall 2023
Registration Deadline: March 28, 2024 (5pm PST)
Submission Deadline: April 3, 2024 (5pm, PST)
Awards: May 2024

ELIGIBILITY:

The YDC is a team competition for students in middle school (grades 6-8) and high school (grades 9-12). A team consists of a pair of students or a group of up to eight students and one to two adult coaches affiliated with a school, educational organization, or homeschool. Please refer to the Official Rules for complete eligibility details.

WHAT WILL YOUR TEAM DO?

Your team will take on the role of innovators and work together to apply biomimicry (nature-inspired innovation) to address a social and/or environmental issue related to a chosen Sustainable Development Goal (SDG). Suggestion: work on an issue that affects your local community!

As a coach, you will guide your students as they study how organisms in nature have adapted to similar problems and challenges, and you will support them in applying what they learn to innovative solutions. Final projects can then be entered into the competition for prizes awarded by the Biomimicry Institute.

HOW DOES THE CHALLENGE MEET INSTRUCTIONAL GOALS?

The Youth Design Challenge is aligned to Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) for both middle school and high school. Full alignments can be downloaded below.

NGSS Alignment for High School
NGSS Alignment for Middle School
NGSS Alignment for UN Sustainable Development Goals

CURRICULUM & TRAINING

Prior experience with biomimicry is not required to participate in the Challenge. A variety of resources and online training opportunities are provided to help you support your students, including full use of all of the MIMIC lesson plans.

REGISTER AS A COACH:

In order to take part in the Challenge, please register as a Coach. Coaches serves as the point of contact between their team(s) and the Biomimicry Institute and are responsible for submitting team entires. Students cannot join the Challenge independently.

REGISTER:
Begin by clicking the SIGN UP button in the top right of this page and completing your Coach profile.*

REVIEW RESOURCES:
You have access to the Educator Resources section of the website, containing program materials, curriculum, guidelines, and supplemental resources. Start by reviewing the Program Handbook for information and suggestions for coaching your team. Then browse the curriculum and resources. Once you’ve registered, you will receive instructions on how to access the Curriculum page of the YDC site.

DIVE IN:
Gather your team members and get them started with learning and designing!

SUBMIT:
When your students have completed their designs, use the Challenge website to submit the competition entry. The Challenge will start accepting submissions as soon as educators are ready.

*If you are a returning YDC Coach or have interacted with the Biomimicry Institute's Design Challenge platform in another role, you will need to create an account in the YDC's new platform.

The YDC Awards are designed to recognize student achievement in several aspects of the design project, correlated to the Project Rubric.

Winning teams will have their work featured online.

SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS:

Entries are submitted online and include the following elements:

Written project overview
Project image
Video pitch
Project portfolio
Team photo

For complete details about requirements, please visit our Submission Guidelines page.

JUDGING PROCESS:

Coaches are asked to participate in the judging process during a preliminary review period in which they will rate a selection of student entries against the rubric. Award winners are then selected by a panel of expert judges from among the top-scoring entries.

Design Brief: Solutions to a Sustainable Development Goal (SDG)

YOUR CHALLENGE:

Explore the wonders of the natural world and create a nature-inspired innovation* that addresses any global or local problem by:

-Helping communities solve a local challenge AND/OR Reversing/slowing the advancement of an issue that is negatively impacting the community.

* An innovation may include the design of a physical technology, a process, or a system. Basically, any new approach for how people can do things. Demonstrate originality either by proposing an entirely new solution or offering novel improvements on existing ideas.

THE PROBLEM:

Our impact on the environment is destabilizing, and our hunger for energy, materials and other resources is fast expanding, resulting in mounting negative consequences to the planet and billions of people.To avoid the worst consequences of our unsustainably designed products, systems and processes, we must find ways to learn how to design more sustainably. The good news is that our planet’s biodiversity offers an array of possible solutions that are just waiting to be discovered!

A PATHWAY FOR SOLUTIONS:

Nature is one of the best models we have for a sustainable, regenerative way of life. In order for people to thrive on a healthy planet, our human-built systems must work together with the systems of the natural world that we are all a part of. Biomimicry (nature-inspired design) provides a pathway to the solutions we need to accomplish this. Organisms and ecosystems offer incredible inspiration and time-tested strategies that can be emulated and applied worldwide to local issues in areas as diverse as energy, water, transportation, buildings and infrastructure, food systems, health, behavior change, and more.

WHAT ARE WE LOOKING FOR?

Award-winning teams will identify a specific problem to focus on, provide evidence that solving it will help address the issue or challenge identified, and propose an original well-researched biomimicry solution to the problem. We are especially interested in projects that offer solutions to issues affecting the team’s community or region. For details about judging criteria, please review the Challenge Rubric.

DOWNLOAD THE DESIGN BRIEF PDF

The Biomimicry Youth Design Challenge (the “Challenge”) is a project-based learning experience hosted by the Biomimicry Institute (the “Institute”). The program provides educators with a Challenge framework, curriculum, and resources for offering a biomimicry design experience to student teams in a school-based or extracurricular setting. Team design projects may then optionally be submitted to the national competition.

1: WHO CAN PARTICIPATE?

1. The Challenge is open to middle and high school students (US equivalent grades 6th-12th)

2. Students may participate as individuals or as part of a group to form the TEAM. A TEAM consists of the individual or 2 - 8 student team members with 1 or 2 adult COACHES who will communicate with the Institute on behalf of the TEAM. No student may be on more than one Team, however Coaches may advise multiple Teams.

3. TEAMS and COACHES must be affiliated with a public school, private school, registered homeschool, or a legally recognized organization (such as a museum, nature center, after school program, youth agency, etc.). If you do not fall into these categories, we will consider TEAMS on a case-by-case basis – please contact youthchallenge@biomimicry.org before registering in this case. The Institute has sole authority to determine whether an organization constitutes a legally recognized organization.

4. Coaches may be educators, volunteers, or parents/guardians working with the TEAM’s affiliated organization. Coaches must be age 18 or older.

5. TEAMS may be composed of students from assorted grades, however if any team member is in grade 9th-12th (high school) that team must compete in the high school category.

2: PROGRAM CONSENT & RELEASE

1. Coaches are not deemed agents of the Institute and carry no authority, rights, or representation on behalf of the Institute. The Institute provides the Challenge framework as a teaching guide for the Coach, which includes Program materials, management of the judging process, and the issuance of the team awards.

2. Coaches and participants (and minor participants’ parent/guardian) agree to hold harmless the Institute and its officers, directors, agents and employees from and against any and all losses, damages, obligations, liabilities, claims, expenses, fees (including attorneys’ fees), costs and judgments arising out of, based upon or resulting from participation in the Youth Design Challenge

3: HOW TO REGISTER:

1. Coaches must register via the Challenge website, and identify themselves and their affiliated organization or registered homeschool. Coaches will have access to resources and support with which to guide their Teams in the Challenge experience and prepare a competition entry. Student Team members do not directly register or submit entries to the Challenge.

2. If a team has two Coaches, both may register but one of the Coaches must be designated “Lead Coach” and assume primary responsibility for communicating with the Institute and submitting and approving the Team’s entry on the Challenge website. If a team has only one Coach, they are by default the “Lead Coach.”

4: ENTERING THE CHALLENGE:

1. Entries must be submitted in English and received via the Challenge website by the posted deadline. Late and incomplete entries will not be considered. Follow the guidelines provided on the Challenge website and in the Program Handbook for instructions on how and what to submit.

2. Only one entry is permitted per Team. Coaches working with multiple Teams may submit up to three (3) entries. If more than three entries are received from a Coach, only the first 3 eligible entries will be considered.

3. All entries must be the students’ own original work. If any copyrighted materials are used in the submission they must be properly credited and follow U.S. Fair Use guidelines.

4. The Institute reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to disqualify or refuse to display any entry it deems to be in violation of copyright, offensive, inappropriate, or not in keeping with the Institute’s image.

5. Submission materials include photographs and video that may picture students. Coaches must acquire and handle such images in a manner that complies with their organization's image policy and provide parents/guardians with the opportunity to opt out of including their student in submission materials. Coaches are liable for ensuring that all images they submit to the Institute via the Challenge do not picture any students who have opted out.

6. By submitting an entry, each Team (collectively the Coach(es), student team members, and minor team members’ parents or guardians) grants to Institute the right to display the submitted entry materials, photographs, and team biographical information (including names, school names, grades, city and state, and country) on the Challenge website. The Institute may also use such photographs and information, with appropriate attribution, for educational or research purposes, advertising and promotion of the Biomimicry Institute or the Youth Design Challenge, or any other legal purposes, in any and all media now or hereafter known throughout the world in perpetuity without further notice, permission, or compensation, except where prohibited by law.

5: JUDGING & AWARDS:

1. Entries to the Challenge are judged once annually and distinctions are awarded in two grade level categories: middle school (US grade 6th-8th) and high school (US grade 9th-12th). In each category, multiple awards will be given. Refer to the Program Handbook and YDC website for details on the awards and judging process.

2. Coaches submitting entries to the Challenge will be asked to review a selection of entries during a preliminary round of judging and score them based on a numerical point system correlated to the Youth Design Challenge Rubric. Coaches may not judge their own Team(s) or any other Team that would represent a conflict of interest.

3. Up to 10 entries in each category (based on numerical score) will advance from the preliminary round to a second round of judging. A panel of judges composed of Biomimicry Institute staff and selected education and biomimicry subject matter experts will select award winners. Decisions are final. Winners will be notified via email.

4. Projects selected for awards will be publicly recognized in a gallery on the Youth Design Challenge website, on the Biomimicry Institute website, and in media and outreach from the Biomimicry Institute. Each winning team will receive an award certificate.

6: GENERAL AWARD CONDITIONS:

1. By accepting the award, recipients grant to the Institute the right to use his or her name, photograph, likeness, and biographical information (including grade, school name, hometown, and state), for purposes of advertising and promotion of the Biomimicry Institute or the Youth Design Challenge, or any other legal purposes, in any and all media now or hereafter known throughout the world in perpetuity without further notice, permission, or compensation, except where prohibited by law.

2. One or more winners may be asked to attend and participate in media and/or public relations events (the “Media Events”) designated by Institute and/or requested by various media outlets. Upon Institute’s request, and subject to winner’s availability, each winner agrees to participate in such Media Events without any further compensation. However, the Institute will cover travel expenses related to media events. Institute shall have the right, in its sole discretion, to choose the winners it wishes to participate in such Media Events. By accepting the prize, all winners, whether or not chosen to participate in such Media Events, agree to release Institute and its employees, directors, and officers, and hold each of them harmless from any claims relating to the respective winner’s selection, non-selection, participation, or non-participation in any Media Events.

3. The Coach may be asked to submit testimonials, photos, and other materials for use in promoting the Challenge, and if the Coach submits such materials, he or she agrees that the license above with respect to the entry shall cover such submission.

7: PRIVACY POLICY:

1. We believe that privacy is important. Any information shared with the Institute during the Challenge is subject to the Biomimicry Institute Privacy Policy and Terms of Use which can be viewed here.

HOW DO I KNOW IF MY ORG IS ELIGIBLE TO HOST A TEAM?

The competition is open to teams affiliated with a public school, private school, registered homeschool, or a legally recognized educational organization (such as a museum, nature center, after-school program, youth agency, etc.) If you are unsure that your team qualifies, please contact us at youthchallenge@biomimicry.org.

CAN MY HOMESCHOOL PARTICIPATE?

Yes. Please indicate that you represent a homeschool when registering.

CAN MY INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL PARTICIPATE?

Yes, we accept entries from schools outside the US.

HOW MANY TEAMS CAN I COACH?

You can coach as many teams as you want. To streamline the judging process, we ask that each coach submit only their 3 strongest team projects to the competition. You can select the teams you submit yourself or organize a local competition and have students or special guests vote on which projects should enter.

HOW LONG DOES THE CHALLENGE TAKE?

To prepare a competitive entry, we recommend devoting 25-30 class hours to complete the project. This includes time for background instruction on the topics of biomimicry and climate change as well as time to facilitate the design process. Depending on how these activities are scheduled, and whether connections to other course content or enrichment activities (such as a nature field trip) are added, the project could take, in total, between a few weeks to a full semester or longer. If you do not intend to submit student projects to the competition, you could easily abbreviate the project.

HOW CAN I REACH A BIOMIMICRY INSTITUTE STAFF MEMBER?

If you have a question that was not answered here, you can reach a staff member for support by emailing youthchallenge@biomimicry.org.