Sustainability Through Children's Eyes: A Bird's Nest Conversation Across Five Sustainability DomainsNew
When a five-year-old brought a bird's nest containing blue eggs into their classroom, it sparked a conversation revealing how naturally young children engage with sustainability concepts across multiple domains. Whilst many educators associate sustainability primarily with environmental concerns, this authentic dialogue demonstrates how children intuitively explore sustainability's social, economic, cultural, and leadership domains in meaningful and developmentally appropriate ways.
The following conversation showcases how children's natural curiosity about the world connects to all five domains of sustainability, offering educators a powerful example of integrated sustainability learning that emerges from children's genuine interests and observations.
The Conversation
WHO MADE THE NEST I WONDER?
Child 1: The mother bird made the nest.
Child 2: The dad made the nest.
Child 3: The grandfather made the nest.
Child 4: The mother and father co-operated and that's how the nest got built.
Child 5: They get little things on the ground that are dry and somehow they make a nest that is round.
Child 6: The mother and father co-operate and it's quite complicated because even though birds are not very smart, they need to find a certain shape of stick to fit the right place.
Child 7: Maybe all the grown-ups co-operate and they all spread out to find some sticks a certain shape and they swoop down and pick it up and put it in their nest.
Child 3: The whole family spreads out to get sticks.
Child 8: I know how nests are made. The last bird who made a nest can leave it and then if a bird see a nest that is O.K. they use the nest.
Child 5: But the first bird still has to make the nest!
Child 8: But maybe they CAN find another bird's nest.
Child 5: When birds are five years then they are adults.
Child 6: In the tree there are different parts and different stages and all the birds in the family have a vote and they choose which stage where their nest is.
Child 4: When a mother bird has three eggs and they hatch – then after two days the mother teaches them to fly.
Child 8: Once I had a nest in my garden and my dog tried to catch a baby bird and we had to take it to the vet.
Child 5: One day a little bird crashed into a window but it died and I got to plant it but it is very far away and I can't see it often. I've seen a lot of dead birds in the world (She gives a few examples) there have been ants trying to eat them.
Child 9: I've seen one dead bird on the road.
What does the egg have inside it before it hatches?
Child 10: On the 'Magic school bus', the bird starts to develop inside the egg and when it is ready it cracks.
Child 6: If the bird has a long neck it would have its legs curled around covering its head. If it doesn't have a long neck then it will just be scrunched up.
Child 11: Well you have to take the bird's nest outside to make them hatch.
Child 1: If the baby's mother sits on the nest inside – it can still hatch inside.
Child 5: It does not actually hatch very quickly – it takes quite a while for the cracks to get through. They don't like to come out when it's cold because they think it is winter.
Child 8: it's not good to take the nest because they don't hatch and there soon won't be any birds.
Child 5: Well you took the stick insect and that is also nature!
Child 1: In thinking about this, it must have been very uncomfortable inside the egg.
(Several children start folding themselves up into egg shapes and grunt and groan as they do it!!!)
Child 5: It's very soft inside – but it's not on the outside of the eggs because there is a sac inside the egg.
(There is some discussion to clarify the difference between a 'sack' and a 'sac')
Child 5: There will be a little tube so that the bird can eat because it will be hungry if it is in the egg so long without food.
Teacher: Where does the tube go to?
Child 1: The bird does not have a tube – it eats the yolk.
Child 5: Yes – I made a mistake!
Child 12: Well – you know that snake with that thing around it's neck.......Oh yes a Cobra. Well when it is little it can also fit in the egg?
Teacher: Do you mean to say that a snake also comes out of an egg?
Child 12: Yes, silly, how else do think it got born?
Environmental Domain: Beyond the Obvious
Whilst environmental sustainability often takes centre stage in early childhood education, this conversation reveals children engaging with ecological concepts at a sophisticated level. Child 5's observation that 'there have been ants trying to eat them' demonstrates understanding of decomposition and food chains—fundamental ecological processes. When Child 8 warns, 'it's not good to take the nest because they don't hatch and there soon won't be any birds,' we see emerging awareness of species conservation and the impact of human interference on wildlife populations.
The children's discussion about seasonal timing ('They don't like to come out when it's cold because they think it is winter') shows recognition of natural cycles and animal adaptation to environmental conditions. Their careful attention to nest materials ('little things on the ground that are dry') and construction demonstrates awareness of resource use from the natural environment.
These insights reveal that even young children can grasp complex environmental relationships when learning emerges from authentic encounters with nature, rather than abstract lessons about 'being green.'
Social Domain: Cooperation, Care, and Community
Perhaps most striking is how naturally the conversation gravitates toward social sustainability concepts. The children's immediate focus on cooperation and collaboration—'The mother and father co-operated,' 'all the grown-ups co-operate,' 'The whole family spreads out'—demonstrates a sophisticated understanding of collective effort and shared responsibility.
Child 8's account of taking an injured baby bird to the vet exemplifies care ethics and compassion for vulnerable creatures. Child 5's emotional connection to the bird she buried ('it is very far away and I can't see it often') shows how caring relationships extend beyond human communities to the natural world.
The children also demonstrate peer support and collaborative learning. When Child 5 proposes a feeding tube theory, Child 1 offers a correction, and Child 5 responds with admirable intellectual humility: 'Yes – I made a mistake!' This exchange models the social sustainability principles of respectful dialogue, shared knowledge construction, and learning from one another.
Their embodied learning—spontaneously curling into egg shapes—shows how children support each other's understanding through shared physical experience, building community through collaborative sense-making.
Economic Domain: Resources, Reuse, and Value
Children's thinking about economic sustainability emerges by considering resource use and reuse. Child 8's theory that 'if a bird sees a nest that is O.K., they use the nest' introduces recycling and resource efficiency concepts. The subsequent discussion—' But the first bird still has to make the nest!'—grapples with production and consumption cycles in ways that parallel human economic systems.
Their attention to the nest-building process reveals understanding of resource gathering ('they all spread out to find some sticks'), quality assessment ('a specific shape of stick to fit the right place'), and skilled labour ('it's quite complicated'). These observations connect to economic concepts of production, quality control, and the value of craftsmanship.
The children's awareness that resources must be carefully selected and properly used reflects economic sustainability principles about efficient resource allocation and the importance of fit-for-purpose materials. Their recognition that nest-building requires 'cooperation' also touches on collaborative economic models and shared labour.
Cultural Domain: Knowledge, Traditions, and Ways of Being
The cultural domain of sustainability appears through children's integration of diverse knowledge sources and ways of understanding. Child 10's reference to 'Magic School Bus' shows how children weave together scientific media, personal observations, and family knowledge to construct understanding—a fundamentally cultural process.
The children's application of human family structures to bird families ('The grandfather made the nest,' 'all the birds in the family') demonstrates how cultural frameworks shape environmental understanding. Their anthropomorphising of birds as having meetings and making decisions ('all the birds in the family have a vote') reveals how cultural values about democracy and participation influence their interpretations of nature.
Child 5's account of planting the dead bird connects to cultural practices around death and remembrance, showing how human rituals extend to the natural world. The children's collaborative storytelling and knowledge-sharing represent cultural transmission in action—the oral tradition of learning that has sustained human communities throughout history.
Their vocabulary development around technical terms ('sac' versus 'sack') demonstrates cultural participation in scientific discourse, whilst their spontaneous drama shows cultural expression through embodied learning.
Leadership & Governance Domain: Decision-Making, Voice, and Agency
The leadership and governance dimensions of sustainability emerge powerfully through the children's conversation. Child 6's remarkable statement—' all the birds in the family have a vote and they choose which stage where their nest is'—projects democratic decision-making onto bird communities, revealing children's understanding of participatory governance and collective choice.
The children's willingness to challenge each other's ideas ('But the first bird still has to make the nest!') demonstrates emerging skills in respectful disagreement and evidence-based reasoning—foundations of democratic participation. Child 5's acknowledgement of error models the leadership quality of accountability.
Child 12's confident correction of the teacher ('Yes, silly, how else do you think it got born?') shows remarkable agency and comfort with asserting knowledge, even to authority figures. This represents the empowered voice essential for future environmental advocacy and civic engagement.
The children's collaborative inquiry process—building on each other's ideas, proposing theories, considering alternatives—models participatory decision-making. Their collective exploration of when and where birds nest, how they should be protected, and what interventions are appropriate engages with governance questions about regulating human-nature interactions.
Integration Across Domains: The Power of Holistic Learning
This conversation demonstrates that sustainability learning need not be compartmentalised. When children explore authentic phenomena like bird nests, connections across all five domains emerge naturally. Environmental questions lead to social considerations; economic thinking connects to cultural practices; governance emerges from collaborative inquiry.
The children's sophisticated engagement with sustainability concepts at their developmental level challenges assumptions about what young learners can understand. They grapple with complex ideas—cooperation, resource management, democratic decision-making, care ethics, cultural knowledge transmission—not through abstract lessons but genuine curiosity about the world around them.
Their discussion reveals that sustainability education for young children shouldn't focus narrowly on environmental behaviours like recycling or turning off lights. Instead, it should nurture children's natural capacity to see interconnections, consider multiple perspectives, engage in collaborative problem-solving, and develop care for human and more-than-human communities.
Implications for Early Childhood Education
This conversation offers several important insights for educators committed to sustainability education:
Sustainability is inherently interdisciplinary. When exploring authentic phenomena, children naturally connect environmental, social, economic, cultural, and governance dimensions. Educators should honour these connections rather than artificially separating domains.
Children are capable of sophisticated sustainability thinking. These five-year-olds demonstrated understanding of ecological relationships, cooperative economics, democratic governance, cultural knowledge systems, and care ethics—all essential components of sustainability. We must not underestimate children's capacity for complex thinking when it emerges from genuine interest.
Authentic experiences generate meaningful learning. The nest and eggs provided a concrete starting point for abstract thinking about cooperation, resource use, life cycles, and community decision-making. Real objects and experiences offer richer learning opportunities than decontextualised sustainability lessons.
Collaborative dialogue reveals and develops thinking. The children's knowledge emerged through conversation, with each contribution building on and challenging others' ideas. This dialogic approach supports both individual understanding and collective knowledge construction.
Sustainability education should be developmentally appropriate but not simplistic. Children engaged with genuine complexity—acknowledging uncertainty, revising theories, considering multiple perspectives—in ways suited to their development. Age-appropriate need not mean superficial.
Conclusion: Children as Sustainability Thinkers
When we genuinely listen to children's conversations, we discover them as competent, thoughtful sustainability thinkers. They demonstrate natural facility with systems thinking, recognising connections between individual actions and collective outcomes. They show ethical reasoning, considering what's fair, caring, and responsible. They display democratic dispositions, valuing cooperation, negotiation, and shared decision-making.
Most importantly, they reveal that sustainability learning emerges most powerfully not from adult-imposed curricula, but from children's authentic engagement with the world. A bird's nest becomes a portal to exploring how communities work together, how resources are gathered and used, how decisions are made, how knowledge is shared, and how life cycles unfold.
Following this conversation, the children visited the library to research their eggs, discovering they belonged to blackbirds native to Melbourne. This progression from wondering to investigating exemplifies how sustainability education can nurture children's natural disposition toward inquiry and knowledge-seeking.
The spontaneous drama of children curling into egg shapes demonstrates how learning becomes embodied and empathetic—essential qualities for developing care for the planet and its inhabitants. These five-year-olds revealed themselves not as recipients of sustainability education, but as active participants in sustainability thinking across all domains.
When we recognise children's remarkable capabilities and provide rich opportunities for authentic investigation, we discover that sustainability education isn't something we do to children—it's something we do with them, learning together about how to live well in our interconnected world.
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