Seeking the Spark at Afterschool University

“Your visit was absolutely miraculous – you left a deep track in each child’s life here… They all are amazed and they all are keeping saying that nothing happen to them like this ever before.

It is true not only for kids – it was an absolutely great moment for the Afterschool University. Thank you very much for all your energy you shared with us, for all your inspiration, and simply – “for what you are…”

Anatoliy V. Glushchenko

Associate Professor, Department of Physics  University of Colorado at Colorado Springs

I was thrilled to be sent to Colorado by the Afterschool University to “seek the spark” in 24 of their students.  My exploration, captured in colored pencil drawings, uncovered the passions and affinities of the children.  Afterschool University is using the knowledge that emerged from the creative process to craft an exciting village for their students.  They will be celebrating the success of the young people on March 5, inviting professionals in the area of the children’s sparks to celebrate learning and skills and following your path with heart.  Here are a number of the drawings I made:

We Are 1 Tribe

I’d like to focus on a crucial step in beating the odds – Consulting Nature. In my book, I outline four aspects of Nature that can be used when faced with challenges: having clear goals, fostering diversity in achievement of those goals, operating in systems and thriving on competition that is deeply rooted in cooperation. The sculpture below is the essence of diversity in achieving a goal and giving competition the umbrella of cooperation.

“We Are 1 Tribe” was made by my students at the Arts & Ethics Academy in Santa Rosa, CA. The sculpture was inspired by the Owerri Igobo mbari shrines of Nigeria, where each figure represents a loved one who is gone, a yet-to-be born child or the child of imagination. The young people who made this work of art live in the reality of rival gangs.  I chose the red and blue colors on the background to symbolize two gangs, the newly arrived southern Mexican Sureños (blue) and the more established northern Mexican Norteños (red), unified into one shrine. (In Pittsburgh, PA, the Crips wear blue and the Bloods wear red.) The figure in the exact middle without hair honors 16 year-old Alex, a Sureño member who was killed in a gang-related shooting. The student who made him wrote: “I hope that Alex will live on when people see my sculpture and hear his story.” The tallest figure on the right symbolizes the future son of one of the students, with the colors of the Norteños on his hat. The young Native American man who made him wrote “I hope that my son, Anthony, will live life without having to worry about the next day and the next month’s rent. I hope that he finds work that he loves doing and gets paid well. My son means a lot to me. He is a piece of me to live on when I leave this world.” This collection of loved ones, animals, mermaids and firebirds are a powerful visual reminder that Nature’s diversity forms ecosystems where the needs of all living beings are met, even though there is also competition. (Visit my Facebook page to see more details and hear about what each sculpture represents to the students.)

I would like to ramp up the conversation about how people are cooperating.  Competition is the main drama we hear about and I want to make Nature’s story of cooperative diversity among humans front and center. Do you have stories to share about wildly successful cooperation by diverse elements? Please share them here, knowing they will be passed along to young people. Our life depends on the process of cooperation with every breath we take, where the oxygen molecule that was outside our body becomes a part of our body.  When you share your story, you will be helping to combat the negativism so prevalent among the young people I work with. Your story will also help us adults who are despairing under the weight of the odds we’re up against.

Beating the Odds by Imitating the 6 Billion Year Old Master

Here are a few highlights from the inspiring July Education Summit put on by the Biomimicry Institute:

From Janine Benyus, the Founder: What happens when you compare yourself to Paris Hilton versus Nelson Mandela? Who you compare yourself to changes you. Let’s use Nature as our Measure: It foster cooperative relationships. It leverages interdependence. It’s resilient. It practices benign manufacturing. It has feedback loops. It adapts and evolves. It integrates cyclic processes. It creates environments conducive to life. It is locally attuned and responsive. In any endeavor, ask “What would Nature do? What wouldn’t Nature do?” Instead of heat, beat and treat, how about FLOCK and AWE! How about designing cities that are as generous as ecosystems, which have a surplus of services, such as storing carbon and filtering and storing water. Lavasa, India is trying to do just that.

Exciting Applications of Biomimicry:

The U.S. Green Building Certifiers is using fungal connectivity as a model for communication.

The Department of Energy just granted $122 million to research artificial photosynthesis, which could produce all the energy the planet needs without pollution and very inexpensively. This is truly revolutionary.

Slime molds are being studied to figure out the most efficient routes around cities.

Portland-based Brightworks, which develops intelligent strategies for sustainability, is envisioning a new economic system modeled on the way that fungus moves resources around to the areas that need them the most.

Students at Innovation Space (a part of Arizona State University) are solving real problems with teams made up of majors in design, biology, business and marketing. Is that smart or what?

All this intelligent, elegant thought, rooted in the systems that have taken six billion years to evolve, gives me more hope than I’ve felt in years. And I’ve only scratched the surface of what’s going on! Find out more by going to AskNature.org, especially if you up against the odds.