Building a Sustainable Home in the Amazon.

Hello, I'm Sawyer and this is my first Instructable! This Instructable is made to show and inspire other people on how to create a sustainable home. The house you will be making is a house built in the Amazon rain forest. The home itself is not too difficult to build, due to the fact that it really is just a cardboard house on stilts.

The supplies you will need for this project are listed down below. They can be found in a local Walmart, Dollar Tree, in your home or even your back yard!

1.Card board: Not too much, make sure you have enough to make a wall that is 3 inches tall .

2.Sticks, Popsicle sticks, and Wooden Dowels.

3.Pine needles and Hay: Not many pine needles depending on if you want to use it for the roof. Personally , I thought the Hay was better so I used the pine needles on the door as seen in the picture on the cover.

4.Paint,rocks,and sand: Paint for a river, rocks for the river boarder and sand for under the house.

5. Clay and foam core board: These items are optional depending on if you want the background and animals.

6.Lights: You can just get Christmas lights for the inside of the house.

A biome is a place where only certain animals and plants live depending on the environment surrounding and inside it. One example of a biome is a tropical forest which is where the house you will be making is located. The Tropical forest is a biome where there is lush and dense vegetation and free flowing water sources. Some factors of the Amazon are high precipitation levels reaching to at least 80 inches (2,000 mm) — and in some areas over 430 inches (10,920 mm). The Amazon and other tropical forests get 12 hours of sunlight daily, less than 2% of that sunlight ever reaches the ground.The coordinates for the Amazon is 3.4653° S, 62.2159° W.

The house I got Inspiration from! I got inspiration from this picture of a house. I wanted the design to be a nice good looking wooden home with a small farm and garden.I started deigning my home by making a sketch and and small modal.

The Build is very simple. The fist step is to cut out a peace of card board depending on how big you want it, mine was about 10 inches long and three inches long, this will be your back wall. You will want to do the same thing you did in step one for the front but you will want to make the front wall half the size of the back wall. Next you will want to put the curved wall on. The way you make the curve is by folding the card board to size and cutting off extra bits and pieces when placing.For This Part, Get Help From a Adult: To put together you will need to hot glue the walls together as seen in the picture above.For the next step get the help of a adult, in this step you will need to take a knife and cut out the windows you can put them anywhere you want. This step includes hot glue again so get a adult to help you. For this step cut two peaces of card board with a slight over hang for the roof. To make the curved part you will want to cut triangles and glue them on to the roof as seen in the picture above.Next step you need the help of a adult again. For this step take clumps of hay or pine needles and glue them to the roof as seen in the second picture. For the next step take sticks or Popsicle sticks and glue them to the side.The next step is to make the deck the only thing you need to do for the deck is place Popsicle sticks and glue them flat on the front end of the house.Next Step glue the wooden dowels to the corner of the house walls.For the next step make a ladder or a set or stairs out of Popsicle sticks and glue it to the front as seen in the picture.The next step isn't necessary but as seen in the finished product you can see a background, to make the background you need a foam core board and glue a picture of a forest to the board. The next step is to paint on the river as seen in the picture and put rocks along the out side.The last step is putting the sand/dirt under the house.That's the build. Done! Now, on to the sustainable objects.

Things that make the house sustainable! Sustainable objects below.

1:Big Windows with no glass so air can flow

2:Farm:To make the farm take your clay and shape it into animals. This is for food.

3:Garden:To make the garden bed take Popsicle sticks and make a square and fill it with dirt. This is for food too.

4:Recyclable materials: You already have this one so you don't have to do it, because the Popsicle sticks.Helps the environment when not being used.

5: Environmentally friendly materials: You don't need to worry about this one because you already made it friendly materials, because the Popsicle sticks are "Bamboo". This is used to not harm the environment when no one lives in the home.

6:Solar panels:To make the solar panels, you need to take Popsicle sticks and glue them in a small square shape and cover it with tin foil. This is used for power.

7: Compost bin:To make the compost take Popsicle sticks and cut them in half and glue them together to form a square box. Compost is used to help enrich the soiland to give back to the environment.

8: Rain barrel:To make the rain barrel do the same thing you did to make the compost bin but make a top and a gutter system to go into the barrel as seen in the finished project in the build section. This is use to have a fresh water source other than the river to water the gerden.

All in all I learned that sustainable houses are very good for the environment and that the world would be better with sustainable materials and houses.