BioCards tool: Cultivating Sustainable Innovations in Biomaterial Development

Can biodesigners collaborate to create more innovative and sustainable solutions? Can they find answers to food waste production or to build materials that the 21st century requires? The BiomaterialKIT investigation, an EU-funded collaborative research project between Portugal and Turkey, asked those research questions when developing a set of cards that provides data to structure the creation of biomaterial with K12 students from these different cultural backgrounds. The hypothesis was that solving problems, local or global, requires creative thinking and flexibility. To help equip participants with these skills, a set of workshops aimed to empower students to learn problem identification, social innovation, and environmentally sustainable design principles. They were crucial to improving consumer decision-making behaviors, bringing awareness of both individual and collective responsibility in mitigating environmental impacts, and training in innovative approaches to utilize biomaterials, thereby promoting their reintegration into the circular economy to mitigate the effects of climate change.