THE BEST NEST

There is a problem forming in our school grounds!! The trees are being cut down and
our mother birds don’t have as many trees to nest in…Your task is to design a
sustainable nest that can be used to nest our baby birds. Let’s do this!

Brief: To make this functional nest, you must follow the steps in detail and make
sure you do not rush ahead. You must follow all of the technological processes of
investigating, generating, producing and collaborating and managing. In groups of 3,
you will construct your ideas and plans for your nests and then begin the creations.

You will make a design for your nest while considering these factors:
- What kinds of birds do we have in our local area?
- What do birds need when nesting? e.g. what kind of materials
- The materials on offer
- How will you use the available material?
- How big will your nest need to be
- The process you will follow
Comfort so that the baby birds and the mother feel comfortable
- Your design must be majority natural sources with little waste.
Generating designs:
You will spend a lesson at the local park that requires our help and observe the birds
that you see. You will take photos of the birds, nests and trees that you see to help
with your creation of ideas. You will use the information we have had in previous
lessons on birds to help with your design.
Your teachers will also supply you with some nests that they have collected from
their homes and photos collected of other nests to give you inspiration and help with
your design.

- Now that you have some photos of nests around the area, you must now
create 2 x nest designs as a group that you feel would be suited to the
environment and the weather.
- On template provided, you must sketch 2 x designs
- Annotate these designs with the materials needed
- As a group, decide on the plan you would like to create as your final product.

Project specifications:

- Scissors - Is your design the right size to home the birds

- Raw pasta that you are designing for?
- Pens - Does your design keep in mind the weather?
- Markers - Your design must include walls and a base
- Sticky tape - Your design must be strong enough to
- PVA glue withstand the weather
- Hot glue gun (teacher controlled) - Your design must include some aspect of
- Leaves (dried and fresh) comfort/cushions
- Wool - Your design process must be documented with
- Feathers photos.
- Twigs - Your design must be majority natural sources
- Branches
with little waste.
- Kain/twine
- Rope
Project
- management:
Once you have chosen your design from your 2 sketches you must:
1. Gather the materials from the front of the classroom.
2. Delegate the roles. You may like one group member to be responsible for
creating the base of the nest, one for weaving the material and one for
 making the walls of the nest and then as a group come together to put it all
together.
3. Create the base of the nest with Kain, start with the structure.
4. Weave twine with your other chosen resources around the Kain to fill in all of
the holes
5. Consider method of attachment here (PVA, weaving, teacher to use glue gun)
6. Start creating the walls- follow the same process as above.
7. Add in your chosen comfort and insolation.
8. Ensure your nest is stable and not likely to break. This will be assessed by
your teacher one week after nests are placed in local trees
Evaluation:
Your final product and planning sheet with accompany photos must be submitted to
teacher.
In your final lesson you will take your nests outside and your teachers will place
them in short hanging trees to test durability when returning one week later.

Presentation: You will hand in your design plan along with accompanying photos
and design to your teacher for review.
You will also present a 3-minute presentation on a reflection to the rest of the class
showing your design and going through the criteria on rubric
Discuss these questions in your presentation:
- The review of your original design and any changes you may have made or
would still make
- Justify the materials that you used and how you bound the materials.
- How effective you think your nest will be at housing the birds?
- Discuss the process you followed
Time: See program outline tab on Weebly.