On Monday, February 12, 2024, the Delran STEM Ecosystem Alliance hosted two multilingual family learning nights. The first session, from 5:45-6:45, had activities with interpreters for Turkish and Arabic-speaking families, while the second session, from 7:00-8:00, provided activities and interpreters for Portuguese and Spanish-speaking families. The topic was “Biomimicry,” with information about how people use ideas from animals and nature to solve problems.
We learned about global examples of biomimicry, like loofah sponges inspired by plants in Brazil and how Türkiye’s Burdock plant inspired velcro. Students engineered their own pollinator solutions after completing diagrams on the parts of a flower and watching a video of how bees pollinate flowers.
Students created many differing contraptions to transfer the “pollen,” represented as glitter, to their flower. The STEMbassadors demonstrated several examples showcasing how surface area is an important consideration when creating their pollinators.
Many participants shared their bee-autiful creations and discussed their successes and how they improved their designs during the process.
Families were provided with their own copy of “Mimic Makers: Biomimicry Inventors Inspired by Nature” by Kristen Nordstrom. Looking for more information about biomimicry? The Burlington County Library, which visited our school previously for Multilingual Family Literacy Night, has several great titles for elementary, intermediate, and middle-grade students:
Additionally, our school libraries at Millbridge, DIS, DMS, and DHS have resources on pollinators, like bees, and their importance for the ecosystem (links direct to each school’s available books on this topic).
Thank you to our translating staff: Rahsan Saka for Turkish, Letecia Candido for Portuguese, Alyse Rutkowsi for Spanish, and Amjed Alibi for Arabic. Thank you to our attending teachers, such as ESL teachers, our supervisory staff and administrators in attendance, to our STEMbassadors for always lending a helping hand, and of course, to our Delran families who participated in the event.
We are excited for upcoming events, such as our summer STEAM Camp, the annual STEM Fair, and many other exciting events this spring. Additional events and registration information can be found on our Events page, or follow us on social media.