Majestic and beautiful with their characteristic wrinkled grey skin. Elephants have inspired several innovative ideas.
From a trunk that inspired soft robotics to skin patterns now cooling real buildings, elephants are a masterclass in biomimicry — proof that even a single animal can offer several completely different design solutions at once.
What you’ll learn:
- How an elephant’s boneless trunk inspired a new kind of robotic arm
- Why an elephant’s feet can “hear” — and what that has to do with sensing technology
- How elephant skin patterns are already cooling real buildings today
Projects about Africa or Asia often include learning about elephants. You can use biomimicry cards in the classroom to further enhance learning about these fantastic animals. Elephants are well known among kids for their unique appearance, with their swinging, flexible trunks and huge size. But diving deeper into these animals is not only tremendously fun but also essential to the work to save these creatures. Love and caring start with understanding!
Our largest terrestrial mammal has an amazing, flexible trunk that has helped designers create a robotic arm. Their trunk lacks bones, and the move towards “soft robotics” has helped develop solutions that can aid the handicapped or assist with heavy lifting in the agriculture business. An elephant’s trunk is structured like a human tongue, functions like an arm, and is a nose!
Elephants can twist their trunks. They can twist it in both left and right motions. Elephants use suction power for eating. They suck up small pieces of food through their trunk.
Drawing the trunk with its muscles is a perfect way to gain a deeper understanding. Developing drawing skills is very useful, and many kids love observing animals or plants in detail.
Also, the foot of the African elephant is remarkable. Not only does it support the weight of the largest terrestrial mammal, but it also absorbs and distributes forces. Their feet have large cushions, essential in spreading forces during weight bearing. Amazingly, the cushions are also very sensitive. Elephants “hear” with their sensitive feet. They emit low-frequency sounds, infrasound, that travel under the ground. An elephant stomps the ground to alert other elephants of danger. The feet of other elephants sense the vibrations.
That’s two biomimicry lessons already — a boneless trunk inspiring robotics, and sensitive feet inspiring vibration-sensing. The elephant has a third lesson to teach, and it’s written right across its skin.
The patchwork pattern of the skin is also a great topic for making detailed sketches. The pattern helps the elephant stay cool since rough skin retains moisture better than smooth skin. The elephant’s skin thickens over time, and the new layers put pressure on the outermost layer, and it eventually cracks.
“If the skin was shedding, it would never get thick enough to generate the stress inside the little valleys of this lattice of elevations, and you would not have the cracks appearing.”
You can read more about how this works here – something scientists recently explained.
The moisture capture ability of wrinkled skin has inspired ideas to make tiles that help to cool buildings. A couple of weeks ago, I listened to bioSEA explain some of their ideas to reduce the need for aircon in tropical and subtropical climates.
This is the same passive-cooling principle we explored with Arctic bumblebees and wildfire-adapted plants — nature solving extreme-temperature problems long before we did, whether that means staying warm in the Arctic or staying cool in the tropics.
Elephant-skin-inspired tiles for buildings could help them manage heat gain and improve ventilation.
Photos by: BioSea and Jennifer Latuperisa Andresen, Unsplash.
The Cards can be found here and here.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is biomimicry?
Biomimicry is the practice of looking to nature for solutions, then applying what we learn to design and problem-solving. Instead of inventing from scratch, it means studying how plants, animals, and ecosystems have already solved a challenge — like staying cool, collecting water, or absorbing carbon — and adapting that strategy for human use.
How does biomimicry help address climate change?
Nature has been adapting to extreme conditions for billions of years, so many organisms already hold working solutions to problems we now face at a larger scale — cooling buildings without electricity (termite mounds), collecting water in drought (the Namib beetle), protecting coastlines from storms (mangrove roots), and capturing carbon (corals, forests, kelp). Biomimicry means studying those solutions and applying the same principles to human design.
How can children get involved in biomimicry?
Children don’t need special training to think like a biomimicrist — just curiosity and a habit of asking “how does nature solve this?” Simple ways to start include a backyard scavenger hunt for nature’s patterns, a “design-an-animal” challenge for a changing climate, or building a small model (like a passive-cooling structure or a water collector) inspired by something they’ve observed outdoors.
Is biomimicry only for scientists and engineers?
No — biomimicry is as much a mindset as a profession. Anyone can practice it by observing nature closely and asking design questions. Professional biomimicry practitioners apply it in architecture, materials science, and engineering, but the same core skill — careful observation followed by “what if we built it that way?” — is exactly what this post’s classroom and family activities are designed to build in children.
Åsa Jomård
In 2015, Åsa completed a course in Biomimicry: A Sustainable Design Methodology at Minneapolis College of Art and Design. With over 10 years of experience exploring nature for inspiration and as a former member of Ben, Biomimicry Education Network, she brings both academic background and creative teaching experience to her work. Her materials seamlessly integrate stories, nature observations, and design challenges, making them perfect for inquiry-led learning in early primary contexts.
AI was used as a Thinking Partner.
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