BIOMIMICRY FELLOW BANAFSHEH KHAKIPOOR INSTRUCTS STEM SUMMER CAMP

Week of Aug 6-10, Biomimicry Fellow Banafsheh Khakipoor piloted her “Bee a Coder” camp at Cuyahoga County Library – Bay Village Branch. Eleven participating elementary students learned how foraging bees communicate with their colony the direction and distance of food, water, and ideal hive locations via a waggle dance. Then, the students created their own communicative waggle dance, learned about the core elements of algorithms (variables, sequences, conditions, repetitions), and coded a waggle dance decipher-er using Scratch software. Biomimicry Fellow Rebecca Eagle-Malone stopped by with a transparent beehive box, giving students the exciting opportunity to observe a swarm in action. This camp was organized as part of efforts by the NEOSTEM Ecosystem to bring computational thinking into classrooms.

Biomimicry Fellow Banafsheh Khakipoor is co-sponsored by Avon Lake Regional Water (ALRW) and the Teaching Institute for Excellence in STEM (TIES).