Chapter Faszination Bionics: CLIL in the German classroom

Bionics is a field of research in which scientists and engineers harness insights from nature to develop new technological inventions for our future.

The word "bionics" is made up of the terms biology and technology. Gliding through water like a boxfish or running up walls like a gecko - are just two of the features that inspired technology. They have already been copied in many fields. One of the most famous examples is Leonardo Da Vinci's idea to transfer the principle of a bird's flight to flying machines. Velcro, inspired by burrs, is the most common example from modern everyday life.

Bionics provides exciting research results that are the basis for innovations in the high-tech sector. This relatively young science vividly demonstrates that German research continues to build on technical progress. The well-known bionics experts from Bionik-Sigma-Education, a partner organization of the German Education Cooperation of the Goethe-Institut Rome, have profound and long-standing experience in teaching natural science topics to children, young people and adults, inventing games, models and craft kits. For the Goethe-Institut, they led a series of workshops and seminars for students and teachers. The Goethe-Institut Rome has published Fascination Bionics - CLIL in the German Classroom.

PUBLICATION "FASCINATION BIONICS"
Published 2013
Publisher:
Goethe-Institut Rome, Ulrike Tietze
Editors:
Hartmut Retzlaff, Gerdis Thiede
90 pages
German and Italian

Captivatingly beautiful photos, such as those of the boxfish, luminescent jellyfish, the Sardinian tree frog, lotus blossoms and sparrows bathing in a rain puddle, make it difficult to put this book down. In a few concise chapters, the book leads to the subject matter and offers suggestions for teaching German.

The edition consists of four parts:

1. Articles on bionics, workshops and seminars, the Mercedes-Benz bionics exhibition, and the development of the CLIL activities of the Goethe-Institut in Italy.
2. Three building blocks for CLIL bionics lessons
3. The German-language DVD PatenteNatur - NaturPatente from the Ministry for the Environment, Climate and Energy Management Baden-Württemberg
4. Analogy picture cards on bionics with instructions and solution sheet

The 13 green and 13 orange analogy picture cards were created by the Roman artist Valentina Cardinali for the Goethe-Institut Rome. She studied in Rome at the Accademia delle Belle Arti.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)