Saturday Spot: The Two Oceans Aquarium and Biomimicry Course…

The Two Oceans Aquarium is a must see place to visit in Cape Town… And they are having a fabulous special on Family Memberships until the end of this November…

If you have fewer than eight kids then it is worth gathering your grannies, fairy godmothers, anyone really and getting a ticket that will stand you well again and again for the whole year!!! If you have eight kids then the Aquarium is well out of reach as an outing. But from time to time they have fabulous workshops for older students… We subscribe to their newsletter so that we don’t miss a workshop opportunity for our kids. It is a cool day out, they learn fabulous stuff, it is very hands on… And they totally love it!!!

Our three oldest kids recently spent a Saturday at the Aquarium: learning about Biomimicry. Frankly I wished I was in Grade 7 all over again just to go and sit in on their course… So here are their photographs and interpretations of the day…

On Saturday we went to learn more about biomimicry at the Aquarium. Biomimicry is using ideas from other things in nature. We knew what it was but it was fun to learn about how to use it. It is a tool to make wonderful tools like flying jelly fish, bullet trains like needles, no-stick paint, termite air-conditioning and a car like a fish. We prototyped a cliff-diving squirrel.

This is how Biomimicry works:

I would like air conditioning for my sky scraper.
Termites in Africa do a good job at keeping their “skyscrapers” cool.
How do they do it?
Use the idea.
Air condition using a structure of vents, promoting air flow.

We went to the aquarium for a biomimicry course, they showed us examples and ideas… and told us all about a biomimicry competition. We had fish fingers for lunch. At our table we designed a swimsuit like a ray, with cormorant and fish features as well.

The showed us models they have built using biomimicry…

We learnt about how biomimicry is copying things that nature is doing… and they showed us some fun examples… like squashing the nose of the bullet train made it so quiet.

We went on a tour and played with spiny sea-urchins and we went down stairs and watched the diver feeding the fish. We also saw penguins. After lunch we went upstairs to design our own ideas… I designed a mushroom house.