At the heart of the biodesign curriculum is encouraging a deeper understanding of how nature works: how it forms and uses materials, how form follows function, how all life is integrated in nested and overlapping cycles.

Kombucha leather is made from the dried scoby (symbiotic colony of bateria and yeast) that grows in the presence of sweet tea to the length and width of the container its grown in. Glass containers are ideal for this, as they are easy to sterilize - a new, unscratched plastic container will also work.

Kombucha leather recipe

Ingredients
Premade sweet tea using the following ratio:
7 cups water, 1 cup sugar, 4 teabags)

Store bought kombucha (live, plain)

Directions:
1. Wear gloves
2. Clean gloves and container with alcohol. Allow to dry.
3. Add prepared sweet tea and premade kombucha in a 3:1 ratio.
4. Loosely seal container so that gas exchange can still occur while dust is kept out
5. Place in a clean, moderately warm spot, away from direct sunlight
6. When scoby is a minimum of 10 mm, harvest by removing from the container, rinsing, patting dry and laying on a flat unfinished piece of wood.
7. Drying times vary with temp and humidity, but should be less than 1 week

Notes:
1. Make sure sweet tea is completely cooled before adding the live scoby!
2. Creation of the scoby can be sped up by placing your container on top of a heated seedlng grow mat