Using Structures, Functions, and Mechanisms to Access Biological Analogies: Experiences from High School Engineering Teachers' Professional Development

This innovative practice work in progress paper presents Biologically inspired design (BID) to transfer design principles identified in nature to human-centered design problems. The Biologically Inspired Design for Engineering Education (BIRDEE) program uses biologically inspired design to teach high school engineering in a way that uniquely engages students in the natural world. For high school students, identifying natural systems' analogues for human design problems can be challenging. Furthermore, it is often the case that students focus on and transfer superficial structures, rather than underlying design principles. Based on the Structure-Behavior-Function (SBF) design ontology, we developed a modified cognitive scaffold called Structure-Function-Mechanism (SFM) to assist students and teachers with identifying functionally similar biological analogies and identifying and transferring design principles. In this paper we describe SFM and its importance in BID and our observations from teaching SFM to high school teachers during a multi-week professional development workshop in the summer of 2020. Based on teachers' work artifacts, transcriptions of discussions, and focus groups, we highlight the challenges of teaching SFM and our plans to scaffold this important concept for students and teachers alike.