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Corinne Okada Takara’s youth biomaking workshops use materials such as mycelium, agar-based bioplastics and kombucha-derived bacterial cellulose to help young people explore biology through making. The projects are not simply lessons in how to produce an object: they connect material experiments with creative reuse, local environments and community knowledge.
What Takara’s youth biomaking practice is about
In a March 2019 Make: profile, Takara was described as an artist and teacher leading youth work at The Nest, a San Jose-area makerspace focused on design, biology and engineering. She used biomaterials as both creative media and a way into questions about sustainability: What can living systems make possible, what materials are close at hand, and how might a young maker experiment with them?
That earlier account should be read in its own time and place. Later profiles describe Takara as a Honolulu-based artist and STEAM educator. Stanford’s BIO4E team profile identifies her as specializing in biomaterial design and collaborative art, and says she co-founded BioJam and works from Nest Makerspace. The available accounts do not establish that the San Jose and Hawaiʻi descriptions refer to one unchanged location or program.
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The teaching format is deliberately open-ended. Rather than asking every participant to produce one correct finished object, an activity can offer a shared starting point for testing, conversation and individual choices. Takara put the aim this way in the 2019 interview: “When I design a workshop activity, I frame it as a conversation starter that I hope carries over into people’s discussions at home.”
How the 2019 teen projects used biomaterials
The Make: profile followed teen teams working through the Biodesign Challenge. One proposal, called “Living Leather” or GIY BioBuddies, imagined a grow-it-yourself toy experience. Its components included 3D-printed parts and mycelium grown in molds with waste-stream substrates such as coffee grounds or plant cuttings, alongside a material derived from kombucha culture. These were reported prototypes and design intentions; the account does not establish that a commercial kit was released.
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The profile described several distinct material processes. They are useful to understand as project choices, not as a ranking of which material is best:
| Material or process | Reported activity or form | What the account establishes |
|---|---|---|
| Mycelium | Grown with substrate and cured in forms such as lampshades or containers; the teen concept also proposed growing it in molds. | A making process explored in the profile; no comparative durability or environmental results are given. |
| Agar-based bioplastic | Used for casting and press molding. | Agar was named as an ingredient, but no brand, grade, exact formula or tested product is specified. |
| Kombucha-derived bacterial cellulose | A SCOBY was grown into a sheet, then dried for use as a project material. | A reported workshop material process; no exact handling protocol or application-performance data are provided. |
| Fabrication aids and feedstocks | 3D-printed wings and molds, recycled milk-jug vacuum-formed molds, petri-dish activities, coffee grounds and plant cuttings. | Tools and materials documented in the projects, not a product recommendation or proof of environmental benefit. |
Takara described the appeal as making sustainability design approachable through materials that could invite experimentation. In the interview, she said: “I wanted to explore materials that are low cost, relatively easy to grown, easy to dispose of, and break down the fear factor.” That is her stated design intention, not evidence that every material or finished object is inexpensive, safe to produce at any scale, or automatically compostable.
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Why place and cultural knowledge matter
Takara’s work treats biology learning as connected to the place where it happens. Stanford’s Biology for Everyone team describes community biology learning in settings such as libraries and gardens, and explicitly includes ancestral knowledge and lived experience in its account of inclusive biology. Its description of Takara’s community workshops highlights hands-on biology alongside local knowledge.
In a Stanford Bioengineering article, Takara said: “I am always inspired to hear elders and youth share stories and have fun with local natural materials.” That framing matters: local materials are not merely convenient substitutes for store-bought supplies. Gathering, naming and working with them can open discussion about who knows a place, how people relate to it, and what kinds of knowledge belong in a science-making space.
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The broader record also spans distinct communities rather than a single workshop site. The Floating Kīpuka Grow Kit project bio says Takara has spent over 15 years collaborating on arts programming across East San José, Salinas and Hawaiʻi. A UC Berkeley Jacobs Institute for Design Innovation Spring 2025 profile reports that she has conducted sustainability and biomaterial workshops across Georgia, Hawaiʻi, Los Angeles and the San Francisco area, and has mentored four teen Biodesign Challenge teams. The four-team figure is a biographical program count, not an assessment of participant outcomes.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What educators can take from the approach
For a youth makerspace, the transferable idea is not a fixed recipe or a prescribed object. It is a way to structure material exploration so that the making itself creates room for questions.
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- Start with a material question. Invite participants to notice what a material is, where it comes from and what changes when it is grown, molded, dried or reused.
- Offer several ways to experiment. The documented projects combined growing and curing, casting and pressing, and drying or fabricating; participants can compare processes without being told in advance that one must win.
- Let the result vary. An open brief can value observation, iteration and conversation as much as a polished artifact.
- Connect the activity to place. Local natural materials and community stories can make biology relevant to the people in the room, while respecting the knowledge they bring.
- Keep environmental claims proportionate. Reusing a waste stream or exploring a biological material is a design direction, not by itself proof of lower impact.
Takara’s projects were presented as an accessible entry point to sustainability design. They do not establish measured lifecycle impacts, carbon savings, quantified learning outcomes or comparative material performance. Tito Jankowski, identified in the Make: article as BioCurious co-founder and an advisor to the student team, characterized the projects’ ambition as using biological materials “to reduce our carbon footprint and support better ways to live, work, and collaborate.” That is an aspiration he described, not a measured result of the workshops.
What the project record does—and does not—show
The sources document a distinctive educational practice: young makers exploring biological materials through prototypes, open-ended activities and connections to local knowledge. They do not establish that GIY BioBuddies became a product, that the materials outperform conventional alternatives, or that the workshops were tested for safety at scale. The account is strongest when read as a record of learning-oriented experimentation rather than as a product launch or proof of environmental superiority.
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