Wild Inventions: Ideas Inspired by Animals

by Sandra Markle

Overview

What do animals have to do with inventions?

Welcome to the world of bioinspiration! Inventors observe and imitate strategies and adaptations that animals use in the natural world to find inspiration for new creations.

Sometimes two animal species face a similar challenge and come up with two very different ways for dealing with it. For instance, both sharks and pangolins have special skin that protects them from harm. Shark skin inspired a type of armor for boats, and pangolins inspired the design of a helmet for humans. Wild Inventions introduces six pairs of animals and the inventions they inspired. It gives readers a peek at the creative process involved in designing new inventions to help people stay safe, live more comfortably, and go places and do things that weren’t previously possible.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9798765602256
Publisher:	Lerner Publishing Group
Publication date:	10/03/2023
Series:	Sandra Markle's Science Discoveries
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	48
File size:	33 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	10 - 11 Years

About the Author

Sandra Markle is the author of numerous award-winning books for children. A former elementary science teacher, she is a nationally-known science education consultant. Markle has received many honors for her series Animal Predators, Animal Scavengers, and Animal Prey. Several titles have been named as National Science Teachers Association (NSTA)/Children’s Book Council (CBC) Outstanding Science Trade Books for Students K-12, and Animal Predators was honored as a Top 10 Youth Nonfiction Series by Booklist.

Over 500 schools participate in Markle's Book Explorers program which provides free resource-packed emails and classroom activities. Markle lives in Lakewood Ranch, Florida with her husband, photographer Skip Jeffery.

Editorial Reviews

"Brimming with full-color photographs and fascinating animals facts, STEM connections are plentiful. Budding young scientists will undoubtedly learn much from this title, and may imagine the role they could play in future bioinspired innovations." —School Library Journal

From the Publisher

11/01/2023

Gr 4–6—The term "bioinspiration" may be a new one for young readers, but they will be fascinated to learn about how inventors observe animal strategies and adaptations to inspire new creations. Six pairs of animals and the subsequent technological advancements they've inspired are explored. Though the term "bioinspiration" was only coined in the 1960s, researchers estimate people have been observing animals and their adaptations as far back as cave men learning to camouflage after watching animals do the same. Seemingly dissimilar animal pairs are featured, such as honeybees and termites, each having to adapt to stay cool to survive. Their adaptations inspired early settlers to use evaporative cooling, which in turn has led to the modern invention of evaporative coolers. Some of the adaptations may be unfamiliar to readers, such as the connection between geckos and sandcastle worms, both of whom face sticky challenges. Geckos have been studied to see how they can adhere to walls, which scientists have used to create Geckskin for soldiers. Sandcastle worms create a gluelike substance that protects them underwater, and researchers were able to study them to create surgical glue. Markle's incorporation of magnified and detailed color photographs make the scientific explorations reachable for young scientists. Brimming with full-color photographs and fascinating animals facts, STEM connections are plentiful. VERDICT Budding young scientists will undoubtedly learn much from this title, and may imagine the role they could play in future bioinspired innovations.—Michele Shaw

School Library Journal

2023-09-23
Select examples of technology “bioinspired” by observations of adaptations or behavior in the natural world.

The veteran science writer not only neglects to mention such well-established examples as the invention of Velcro and the essential historical influence of bird wing structure on airplane wing design, but most of the links she does point to are indirect at best. For instance, she writes about honeybee strategies for cooling hives but then offers an entirely speculative connection to human technology. Nor does she demonstrate precisely how human-made camouflage patterns were based on those of animals, and she makes only a vague connection between diving beetles and water scorpions and the way diving bells carry air underwater (“No one knows for sure what inspired some inventions that helped divers breathe”). The line she draws between dolphin echolocation and the invention of sonar is a tenuous one (“Was Boyle’s invention inspired by dolphins echolocating? He didn’t leave a written record identifying the inspiration for his invention”); the connection grows even more strained when she arbitrarily extends it to the light-based “lidar” that self-driving cars use. Unlike the narrative’s fuzzy choices and logic, the many photos and diagrams are sharp and well worth poring over, with plenty of images that are both enjoyable and informative. Human figures are generally small and distant.

Attractive visuals, but sketchy text. (glossary, source list, index) (Nonfiction. 8-10)

Kirkus Reviews