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Nature Knows Best: Copying Nature's Communication

22 minutes

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Danni Washington walks outside along a sunny, paved lot.

Animals in nature have other ways of communicating than humans, and many of them are able to move collectively in packs called swarms. Host Danni Washington takes a look at how today’s scientists are studying this swarm behavior to make better robots that will help in factories, to collect things on other planets, and to make better autonomous cars. Part of the "Nature Knows Best" series.

Media Details

Runtime: 22 minutes

Topic: Language Arts, Science
Subtopic: Animals, Communication, Science Experiments
Grade/Interest Level: 7 - 12
Standards:

Release Year: 2016
Producer/Distributor: Steve Rotfeld Productions
Series: Nature Knows Best
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Show's intro montage with Danni Washington in the middle, the show's title card, and an airplane overlayed in the back like it's coming into frame.

Two men wearing hard hats stand on a mechanical lift, coating a building's exterior in a layer of white paint. Protective plastic covers the glass doors, windows, and railings.

Bird with white spots on its black wings perches on a tree. Overlaying this photo is a 2-D animation of a silhouetted swarm of flying birds and dozens of neon green dots.

Bald man wearing a T-shirt on a boat in the sea looks over to the right.

Just below the surface of the water, a whale is in the process of rolling over itself on its side.

Danni Washington looks at us, standing in front of a green field, as the show's animated title emerges onto the screen.

Close-up of a golden dragonfly holding onto a stem amid a backdrop of green leaves.

Bearded man wears a metal apparatus strapped to his chest, gesturing with a gloved hand as he talks.

Microscopic imagery compares bacteria cells in neat rows on a sharklet surface versus clusters of bacteria cells on a standard surface starting to spread.

Danni Washington walks outside along a sunny, paved lot.