Biomimicry Youth Design Challenge 2025
Announcing the 2025 Biomimicry Youth Design Challenge, a creative, hands-on way to bring young people, educators, and biomimicry practitioners together to explore the wonders and possibilities of nature.
In an exciting new partnership agreement, POCACITO Network has become the new home for the Biomimicry Youth Design Challenge. First launched in 2018 by The Biomimicry Institute, the BYDC supports student teams from around the world with a curriculum to learn the fundamentals of biomimicry, a collaborative platform to exchange ideas and discoveries, and a virtual exhibition and awards ceremony to celebrate their nature-based solutions to challenges facing our communities.
Teams consisting of two to eight students and at least one adult coach can register to participate. Following the practice-oriented curriculum, teams identify an issue related to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Through a series of activities and access to an archive of inspiring examples of nature’s technical genius, they design and present a nature-based solution to their chosen issue. Working with a subject-matter expert and mentor, students refine their proposal and craft a project portfolio that they share with their peers. A virtual exhibition and awards ceremony at the program’s conclusion recognize their work and draw greater attention to the limitless potential of working with nature.
The program is free, and the curriculum is available for download and use whether or not students and educators take part in the challenge.
To find out more about this year’s Biomimicry Youth Design Challenge, see what winners from past challenge’s created, and check out the brilliant curriculum put together by The Biomimicry Institute, visit the BYDC website.
POCACITO is grateful for The Biomimicry Institute’s support with this transition, ensuring that this wonderful opportunity for students and educators continues. We’re excited to watch this new partnership grow.
There are many ways to support the Biomimicry Youth Design Challenge. If you are an educator, biomimicry practitioner, or simply eager to see this program flourish, you are invited to write to us at biomimicry@pocacito.org. The BYDC not only expands POCACITO’s work with nature-based solutions and practice-based educational experiences, it offers new opportunities to grow this network of people and organizations working to realize a world capable of sustaining health and wellbeing for generations to come.