8 Environmental Science : Field Trip part 1
Introduction
Today, educationists have come to realize that the immediate Environment is a wonderful
curriculum laboratory providing extremely dynamic, interesting and real life opportunities
for learning. In its historical records every Environment has the stories of people and
resources woven into the pattern of national development. Basic social processes and problems
operate in every Environment in action for or against. As we investigate social problems
they become concrete in our own communities. Thus, the Environment provides concrete
data on cultural, industrial, political and geographical facts and relationships. As these data
are tangible, seeable and describable the school should take itself to the Environment,
regard it as laboratory, discover its resources, understand its culture, appreciate its problems
and also suggest solutions to these problems. Through the use of resource people, field trips,
environment surveys, service projects, etc. it should open doors for experience for a child to
have knowledge about the factories and farms, social agencies and museums, council sessions
and union meetings.
The school and the Environment must work together in the process of education in a
co-operative and collective quest. In the absence of this living, dynamic relationship between
the two, education will be anemic, unreal, and unable to make any abiding impact on the
mind and character of children. The life of the Environment is powerfully influenced by
social purposes the techniques of production, knowledge and culture. Not able to keep pace
with these changes and adjust its programmers to them the school becomes an outdated,
backward looking agency. Modern school cannot be an island in the midst of the Environment.
It must enrich the Environment and the Environment must support it. The two-way traffic
should not only be possible but also pleasant and useful.
“Let us study the Environment, use the Environment, serve the Environment and
involve the Environment in the educational process.” Let Environment Education reform
shall start with the relining of the school to Environment and the restoring the intimate
relationship with the environment.
Methods of Utilizing Environment Resources
There are basically two ways in which the teacher may make use of environment
resources—
A. Taking the school to the Environment
B. Bringing some of the Environment to the school
A. METHODS OF TAKING THE SCHOOL TO THE ENVIRONMENT
The emotions of children are most easily reached not by words but by sights and
sounds. This is possible through field trips, surveys, camping, service projects, etc.
1. Field Trips
Environment Education teaching programmers are not complete without a field trip.
Field trips may be undertaken for securing information, changing at des awakening interest,
developing appreciation, promoting ideals, enjoying new experiences. Initiating a unit of
study they can be a part of the core of it or they can give it the finishing touch. They are
a means of getting first-hand knowledge and confirming and supplementing second-hand
knowledge. They are a means for sharpening observation, testing principles and doing
everything, which Environmental Science requires.
Types of Field Trips
1. Complex undertakings—These require elaborate transportation, full-day planning,
and additional adult helpers. These longer trips to historical sites and special
events beyond the local Environment have exciting destinations to be explored for
problem-solving and project executing the offer valuable opportunities for observation
of the easily planned visits to factories, radio stations, newspaper plants, wholesale and retail establishments, libraries and the like.
2. Simple undertaking—These may be embarked at the moment of conceiving the
idea—the walk around the block to see nature and man getting ready for winter,
the Journey to the neighboring farm, the walk through the park to gather some
needed specimens etc.
Uses of Field Trips
(i) Stimulating imagination and laming through sensory perceptions—Some examples
are the taste of fresh milk, the breathtaking heat of a glass furnace, the metallic
hum of a weaving room, the sight of real things in the real world of adults.
(ii) Integrating classroom instruction—This is done by exposing the artificiality of
traditional subject-matter divisions and enabling the pupils to view facts and forces
as they exist in their everyday relationship in living communities.
(iii) Environment Realization through the field trips the student may come to realize
Environment in ways different from bookish laming. They may come to know, see
and feel their Environment as a way of life, “acting with vividness”
(iv) Laming the art of living with others—Traveling in the same conveyances, sharing
rooms, sitting at the same table, participating in the same experiences are helpful
on marking. Character qualities and defects come to the surface.
(v) Expanding emotional and intellectual horizons—This may be done making us
acquainted with people whose manner, customs, living standards, outlook and
interests may be quite different from our own.
Procedure of Field Trip
1. Preparation
A field trip should be planned democratically, organized properly, and executed carefully.
Permitting our pupils an immediate reconciliation with “life in the round” requires a preface
and follow-up connected with and extend to classroom study. It should be much more than
“going to places and seeing things.”
2. Objective
Every pupil, as well as the teacher, should become fully aware of the objective why this
particular trip is being planned, and of how it is related to his own classroom experiences
and activities.
3. Guidance
Appropriate audio-visual aids may be used both for initial motivation and for general
orientation to what will be seen on the trip itself. It will be better if the teacher suggests
guide questions, which the pupils might put, while approaching Environment leaders from
whom they want useful information about the various aspects of Environment life. Major
purposes should be clarified and made specific.
4. Information
The teacher should be thoroughly familiar with the best route, bus stops provisions for
guide service, things to be seen and done by the group, aspects or phases of the resource
centre to be stressed or ignored, eating arrangements, time needed at each stage of the trip,
etc.
5. Definite follow-up activities
These also form an integral part Utilizing Environment Resources in Teaching
Environmental Science of any well-arranged trip. They may take the form of reading books
on the places observed, writing reports or descriptive accounts, preparing scrap-books, panel
or forum discussions.
6. Evaluation
Trips should be evaluated in terms of the originally established purposes. Mistakes and
difficulties should be diagnosed; the conduct of the group should be discussed. The letters
of thanks should be written to the persons concerned.
ENVIRONMENT RESOURCES
Environment Surveys
Environment surveys provide excellent educational experience to senior pupils. They
constitute an organized and systematic method for an accurate determination of social or
physical data.
1. Surveys foster comprehensive understanding of Environment structure and processes
in their everyday operation, interaction and complexity.
2. They are extremely useful in stimulating depth of insight into vital Environment
problems, which should be met.
3. They suggest possibilities for student participation in the affairs of the Environment.
Such constructive participation imparts training to the pupils in democratic
citizenship.
4. They develop awareness of human inter-dependence and of the practical necessity
of general civic cooperation in carrying on successful individual group living.
5. Existing conditions can be critically examined and the way it is prepared for superior
citizenship.
Scope of Environment surveys
1. Any aspect of the Environment, which has meaning for young people.
2. Past history of the locality, the social institutions, the customs, the traditions, the
conventions, the ceremonies, the folk ways, the folk songs, and folk stories.
3. Problems of the Environment such as the problems of housing, health, sanitation,
employment, taxes, traffic is some problems in which pupils will be interested.
Use of Environment Surveys
1. Procedure
Environment surveys can be useful only if they are conducted properly. The actual
survey should be preceded by much discussion and framing of questions, for the best results
are obtained, when the investigators have got warmed up to problems and seek answers and
solutions to questions that have stirred in their minds.
2. Teachers
They should possess definite awareness of directions and possibilities before the group
undertakes such explorations. They should spend as much time as possible in personal
observations of the Environment in order to get the feel of it.
3. The interest of the pupil
The -teacher should arouse interest by relating the proposal for a survey with factors
that touch the life of the pupils. He should see that survey has its basis in the good and bad
achievements of people. Instead of starting with statistical summaries he should start with
people.
4. Objectives preparation
(i) The purpose of the survey must be made clear.
(ii) The problem must be properly analyzed.
(iii) Practical limits to the survey should be set.
(iv) Techniques to be used for collecting data should be decided upon.
(v) Data once gathered should be verified.
(vi) Collected data should be recorded for future use
5. Teacher’s attitude
The teacher should have an encouraging attitude, never an “I have been through all
this before” attitude. The teacher and pupils should work co-operatively together in a spirit
of shared research. Environment survey ought not to be a one-man job. The entire staff on
a continuing basis should carry it on co-operatively, year after year. The pupils and the
teachers can approach local experts, old residents and social workers by collecting data.
Various types of important persons can be interviewed; places of interest can be visited.
6. Resources
The resources, uncovered in the survey, should be grouped in a logical way such as local
industries, places of historical interest, governmental agencies, civic establishments, places
of geographic importance, - persons to interview, persons of cultural significance and similar
categories.
3. School camping
The drift to cities and the rapid tempo of modern living is creating a need for developing
a closer relationship between human beings and natural resources. Called a classroom in
the woods, the camp is a part of the larger Environment. The outdoor environment, in and
around the camp, offers tremendous possibilities for true education. The opportunities to
learn, work and play amidst the natural resources of the area stimulate interest and concern
for the protection and wise use of the natural resources of the Environment.
Advantages of School Camping
1. Learning by doing
School camping encourages direct learning experiences and has potential life-situations
that are conducive to the most effective teaching methods, through learning by doing, seeing,
hearing, testing, smelling and feeling with a minimum of answers given by teachers and
resource leaders.
2. Miniature environment
The school camp is a miniature Environment with the campers and teachers as citizens.
Many of the problems, faced by the Environment are inherent in the camp social as the
handling, preparation and eating of food, sanitation, sewage disposal, housing health habits;
social and cultural differences and the process of representative government.
3. Democratic group life
Camping experience, is democratic group living, which proves useful in inculcating
good qualities in the pupils. It enables the pupils to understand the physical environment
and to use natural resources wisely. It provides additional real situations including workexperiences, where may be applied many of the ski1I and attitudes developed in the classroom.
4. Duration and types
Duration of the camping will depend upon the age of the pupils. Camping can be taken
during school time for a one-week period, two weeks or a longer period. Similarly, the types
and patterns of camping will vary according to the .age of the pupils. Appropriate activities
can be taken up by the campers depicting the, folklore and history of the area, Indian life,
transportation, correction of soil erosion, excavation of relics, etc.
5. Environment Service Project
The pupils for civic welfare involving individual activity of an integrated mental, physical,
emotional can take up Environment Service projects and spiritual nature, Service-projects
are of educational value to the pupil as well as to society.
Examples of Service Projects
1. Social service among the backward population of the town. This includes cleanliness,
‘anti-mosquito campaigns, bathing young children, attending on the sick.
2. School labour service being organized on special occasions. These may be Republic
day, Independence Day, Gandhi Jayanti and Gandhiji’s Death Anniversary. Activities
like planting of trees, road repairs and erection of platforms, cleaning of drains,
digging of manure pits and drain, may be taken up.
3. Animal welfare. This may be done through provision of water facilities, fodder and
medical aid.
4. Beautification of villages. This may be done through’ planting of trees, laying out
of avenues, clearing up of public paces like streets, temples, drains, etc.
5. Relief Parties. Relief parties consisting of teachers and pupils may go out in the
service of the Environment at times of natural emergencies such as floods, epidemics,
fire, earthquakes, etc., They may leave their classrooms to plant trees in out-of the
way places of the Environment. They may help the Environment on fairs, festivals,
and elections. They may undertake anti-mosquito campaigns, attend the sick, etc.,
or work on fund raising for the welfare of the poor.
Advantages of Environment Service Projects
1. They lift education from the dull routine of leading each generation in the footsteps
of its predecessor, to earnest yet joyous adventures in cooperative welfare.
2. They help in raising the status of the pupils. Their all-round growth and development
is stimulated. Service projects help in making world citizens out of provincial
youngsters because they lift the imagination from personal matters of the moment
of the enduring life concerns of all peoples everywhere.