Employing Three-Dimensional Printing Technologies and Precision Hand Painting to Produce Resilient and Relevant Bird Egg Replicas

Abstract

Experiential, hands-on learning about wildlife is one of the best ways to increase environmental stewardship. An alternative to handling wildlife is to create exceptionally realistic replicas. Allowing students and community members to handle bird eggs, thus providing them with a sensory learning experience, will likely inspire them to learn more about bird species. Artificial models safeguard the specimen's diversity by eliminating the need to handle actual specimens. Three-dimensional printing has revolutionized our ability to reproduce models that accurately represent the size, shape, and mass of a bird species' egg by using computer software that computes mathematical formulae generated from photographs of real eggs. Encompassing all three attributes: experiential learning, the biology of bird egg production, and colour theory, the purpose of my research is to employ three-dimensional printing and printing technologies and precision hand painting to produce the most realistic, resilient, and relevant bird egg replicas. Sixteen different bird species are included in the project. The species were selected based on ecological interest and importance to Indigenous culture, supporting a traditional Mi'kmaq sky story passed down through the generations - Muin and the Seven Bird Hunters. The models have educational value for use in Cape Breton University’s Cameron Zoological Museum Collection, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), Let’s Talk Science Kits and CBU’s Ornithology course and community outreach events.