During the week of April 18, 2025, Club Volunteers joined 60 Mountain View Intermediate School students, their teachers, and Muddy Sneakers staff for a hike at Tessentee Bottom to learn and apply natural science to resident bird life.
Did you know even the tiny Towhee can teach us about such scientific principles as:
- insulation
- conduction
- engineering
- chemistry
A Towhee’s nest uses insulators like leaves, twigs, hair, and cotton or wool. A Towhee builds its nest on the ground or in a low-lying bush. This way the ground will absorb the sun’s heat and conduct the warmth through the air up to the nest.
Nest-building birds bend and tuck sticks, showing engineering principles at play, explained Sam, a Muddy Sneakers team teacher. The structure of a Towhee’s nest makes it self-supporting. And natural compost matter is an example of chemistry at work.
As an experiment, the Muddy Sneakers instructor asked students to build a “nest” capable of insulating boiling water. After students prepared their nests, their teachers placed small containers holding hot water in each. After a while, teachers used a laser thermometer to read the water temperature.
The nest with the highest temperature loss was 48% cooler. The experiment taught students that available materials, location, depth, density, engineering, and weather conditions affect warmth in the nest.
You, too, can be inspired by nature. NHC members are invited to volunteer at our next scheduled school event! Our most important job is to freely give our time and smiles to these future stewards of public and wild lands.
Thank you to the Volunteers who participated in this event: Marsha Luczak, Jessie Johnson (ATC), Gwynn Lindler, Marie Dunkle, Mary Bennett, Pam Addleton.
