9 Environmental Science Modern Methods part 3
Advantages of Discussion
1. Useful both for the Juniors and Seniors
Junior children learn through conversation and discussion, to take turns, listen
attentively, act cooperatively, speak distinctly, stand and sit correctly, respect the ideas of
others, share interests, ask pertinent questions, utilize simple information and comprehend
the problem before the group. Senior children plan and discuss problems with the entire
group and in smaller units. The group learns together and presents important information,
makes suggestio
ns, shares responsibility, comprehends the topic, evaluates the findings and
summarizes results.
2. Clarification and Sharpening of the Issues
In discussion new ground is discovered both for agreement, disagreement, and old ideas
and new ones may replace values.
3. Increase in Knowledge
Through discussion children crystallize their thinking and identify concepts needing
further study. Therefore, their knowledge of Environmental Science becomes clear.
4. Moderation
Through discussion students know and understand that difference in perspective need
not result in disaster and that people may believe in the same thing for different reasons.
5. Knowledge of Limitations
The student discovers what he did not know, what he has overlooked and wherein he
was mistaken both as to facts and the method of interpreting them. He may find out what
he knows and the surety with which he knows it.
6. Intellectual Teamwork
Discussion represents a type of intellectual teamwork resting on the principle that the
pooled knowledge, ideas’ and feelings of several persons have greater merit than those of a
single individual.
7. Tolerance
Discussion engenders toleration for views, which are at variance from those one holds.
8. Discovering Leaders
Discussion helps the teacher in discovering students with a potential for becoming
genuine leader.
3. PROJECT METHOD
The most concrete of all types of activity methods Project method provides learning
experiences suited to individual differences. Now here is a question that what is a project?
We can explain in these words that project is an activity willingly undertaken by the pupils
for the solution of a felt problem and leading to learning as prescribed in the curriculum.
It is concrete activity directed towards the learning of a significant skill or process. Having
a wide connotation project includes any activity like dramatics, pageants, making models,
drawing maps and charts, collecting pictures, preparing scrap books, going on historical
tours and exhibitions, preparation of Environmental Science wall newspaper, organization
of debates, etc. The project method transcends the subject -barrier because it is possible to
learn some literature, mathematics, art, etc., also while undertaking a project of
Environmental Science.
Basic Principles of the Project Method
1. Activity: The project involves mental or motor activity.
2. Purpose: Project should be purposeful, a felt need of the pupils.
3. Experience: Project should provide varied type of experiences to the pupils such as
manipulative, concrete, mental, etc.
4. Reality: Project should provide real experiences.
5. Freedom: the pupils should be free to undertake the different activities connected
with the project.
6. Utility: the activities undertaken in a project should be useful.
Steps of Project Method
1. Providing a situation
First of all, the project provides a suitable situation where the pupils feel a spontaneous
craving for carrying out a useful activity through conversation, discussion or exhibition of
pictures and models etc. the teacher discovers the interests, needs, tastes and aptitudes of
the children. While telling a story or taking the pupils out on a field trip initiates the pupils
to the world of projects, they are exposed to so many situations and they determine the
selection of the project. Enough opportunities should be given to the children to express
their ideas and to have discussions among themselves, as well as with the teacher. The
situations or problems provided to the pupils should be social as these provide better social
training and greater satisfaction.
2. Choosing
One of the important duties of the teacher is to so guide the pupils that they may
choose a good project.
3. Purposing
Kilpatrick has well said that the part of the pupil and part of the teacher in the most
of the school work depends largely on who does the purposing. It is practically the whole
thing. Purposing is the most important thing about a project. The teacher might fall a prey
to the temptation of making the choice of the project himself due to desire to get quick and
good results. This violates the most important principle of the method. The pupils should
make the final selection of the project. By self-choice and self-imposition pupils work
wholeheartedly and energetically. Thorough execution and successful completion of the project
they are stimulated to better planning. The teacher’s guidance to pupil-effort should not
hinder the development of the pupils who must make the final choice of the project. The
purpose must be common and acceptable to the whole class. The project “must enlist the
whole-hearted enlistment of the student.”
4. Teachers Role
The teacher should see that the projects satisfy a real felt need of the children and also
have educative potentialities. He should check that the’ pupils may not make a wrong
choice. He should forestall ill feelings arising out of failure. He should lead the students
tactfully to give up that choice and to make another. He should expose the pros and cons
of the project and1et the students reconsider their decision if the choice is not good. He
should resist the temptation of imposing his own idea on the pupil. Pupils do not take
interest in an activity thrust upon them.
5. Freedom and Utility
The pupils should be free to undertake the different activities connected with the
project. The activities undertaken in a project should be useful. Execution of the project
requires a lot of pupil activity. It is the longest of all steps. A series of activities have to be
taken up by the pupils such as collecting information, visiting places and peoples, interviewing
important personalities, consulting labels, observing specimens and curios, preparing maps
charts, diagrams and graphs of the data collected by various groups, surveying the locality,
studying books, keeping records, calculating prices, inquiring rates, writing letters, and
‘Thank you’ notes. The teacher should guide the pupils about the sources of relevant
information. He should provide them with necessary information sought for. He should
supervise the activities and watch the progress of the project. He should co-ordinate the
knowledge to be imparted through a project. He should see how an activity such as the
production of a play or a concert involves elocution, music, literature, craft-work, needleworld and art, along with the many calculations required in planning expenditure, keeping
accounts and producing a balance sheet or the practical science involved in stage lighting
and effects. The teacher should see that pupils get a variety of experiences and learn a good
deal as they undertake the activities.
6. Evaluation
In evaluation or appraisal of the work done the pupils must find out their shortcomings
and good points and review their work to find out that nothing has been omitted and that
the work has been carried out in accordance with the plan laid down. He should see that
mistakes committed are noted to serve as eye-openers for the future: Useful experiences and
successes should be reviewed to serve as good examples. The pupils should critically appraise
their work.
7. Recording
As impressions left unrecorded are likely to be wiped away from memory, pupils should
maintain a complete record of all activities connected with the project. Everything should
put down in the project book such as the choice of the project, ‘the discussions held, proposals
advanced and accepted, duties assigned, books and journals consulted, information sought
for, work undertaken, difficulties felt and experiences gained, short and long-term gains
obtained, self-appraisal important guidelines and future references etc. Thus, project-book
embodies the valuable experiences of the group. Well-prepared project books may be awarded
prizes to encourage the-pupils.
Teacher’s Role in the Project
1. As the teacher has got mature experience, deeper and broader knowledge than the
pupils, his guidance and prompting is indispensable. As the pupils are out on a
venture they need suggestions arid guidance at every step.
2. The teacher should save the pupils from faltering and floundering. He should give
help whenever it is required.
3. As a good prompter, just behind the curtain, the teacher should not make his
appearance on the stage for the stage is meant for the pupils.
4. As a keen observer and a true sympathizer the teacher should win the goodwill of
the pupils so that the pupils feel encouraged.
5. As a storehouse of information and knowledge the teacher should be able to anticipate
the difficulties and suggest remedies as and when necessary. The pupils might look
to him for help, guidance, solace and affection. As no method, however, good, is
superior to teachers, the need for devoted teachers is established.
Some examples of projects:
1. Story of Transportation through the Ages.
2. Akbar and his Age.
3. Mohammad and Islam.
4. The Age of the Ramayana.
5. The Mughal Age.
6. The Indian Renaissance.
7. Communication through the Ages.
8. One World,
9. Our Country.
10. Our City.
11. Our Food
12. Nationalist Movement in India.
13. Achievement After Independence in India.
14. The Socialist Movement.
15. Stages of Evolution of Human Beings.
Advantages of Project Method
1. Psychological.
Project method is planned in accordance with the psychological laws of learning. It
provides the most natural conditions of learning. Therefore, the child remembers the principles
learnt for a longer time.
2. Freedoms and Self-direction
Project method has an element of freedom. It is a method of self-direction. In it the
child learns to improvise, to invent, to experiment, to know in all ways possible and to
translate the knowledge into action. Thus, it develops the creative mind.
3. According to Maturity
According to the psychological concepts of maturation the Project method provides
learning material that suits one’s particular stage of mental development. While the more
mature pupils are given abstract and difficult features of the task in hand the simple leaner
are left to the others who are slow learners.
4. Social Benefits
As separate groups take responsibility for making their own contributions, which are
subsequently pooled and become the class effort, project method results in social benefits.
5. Training
Project method provides training for social adjustment. It develops the pupil’s capacity
to adapt themselves to their environment, to make use of whatever is available and to meet
a situation resourcefully.
6. Doing after Knowing
In project method the pupils learn and do because they understand the value of what
they learn and do in the carrying out their purpose. .
7. Democratic
Project method trains children in a democratic way of life. It encourages them to cooperate, to think and act together of a common goal. Teaching students to be responsible,
it gives them freedom within the framework of cooperative democracy.
8. Practical
Project method provides learning through practical problems by encouraging pupils to
achieve a deeper insight into principles through actually seeing them in operation.
9. Growth
Both the student and the teacher grow through project method. Stimulated by and
encouraged in his exploration of many materials the student approaches other areas of
learning in a similar manner. The teacher also grows in his understanding of a child’s
creative development.
10. Evaluation
An intrinsic standard of evaluation is set up in project method. As the pupils learn to
evaluate their own work, this evaluation reveals the mistakes and helps in rapid progress
and true learning.
Limitations of Project Method
1. Less Knowledge
While children taught by the project method often show astonishing knowledge of
details in odd things but they reveal real ignorance outside the projects. For example, while
an Environmental Science project may deal with construction of an ancient house with great
thoroughness yet the pupils may have no knowledge of the administration of Chandra
Gupta Maurya.
2. Difficult to Formulate
At a later stage of education, it is not easy to formulate projects having a satisfactory
degree of width and comprehensiveness.
3. Lack of Progress in Instruction
There is much difficulty in ensuring any kind of systematic progress in instruction.
4. Requires High Qualification of teachers
Very highly qualified teachers are required for success in this method. Teachers should
be zealous and well prepared.
The spirit of the project method is, in the words of Raymont, “whole-hearted purpose
on the part of the pupil.” It gives a wonderful practical approach to the learning of both
theoretical and practical problems. The responsibility of the success or otherwise of project
method rests with the teacher.
4. SOURCE METHOD
According to source method, pupils build up historical, political, social and economic
accounts, with the help of available sources, documents, historical accounts, biographies and
inscriptions, coins, travel accounts, religious and secular literature, etc. Pupils learn to know
about particular events to understand the process through which they arrive at the product.
Use the source method does not aim at converting the school children into full-fledged
historians and social scientists.
Objectives of Source Method
1. To enable the pupils to develop critical thinking by using the Sources and weighing
the evidence. .
2. To enable the pupils to form their own independent judgment through a critical
analysis of sources.
3. To develop skills of collecting data, sifting the relevant data organizing them and
interpreting them.
4. To create proper atmosphere to make the people and events of bygone times more
real to students.
5. To stimulate the imagination of the students for reconstruction of the past.
6. To develop and promote proper interest and right perspective inthe study of
Environmental Science.
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1. Useful both for the Juniors and Seniors
Junior children learn through conversation and discussion, to take turns, listen
attentively, act cooperatively, speak distinctly, stand and sit correctly, respect the ideas of
others, share interests, ask pertinent questions, utilize simple information and comprehend
the problem before the group. Senior children plan and discuss problems with the entire
group and in smaller units. The group learns together and presents important information,
makes suggestio
ns, shares responsibility, comprehends the topic, evaluates the findings and
summarizes results.
2. Clarification and Sharpening of the Issues
In discussion new ground is discovered both for agreement, disagreement, and old ideas
and new ones may replace values.
3. Increase in Knowledge
Through discussion children crystallize their thinking and identify concepts needing
further study. Therefore, their knowledge of Environmental Science becomes clear.
4. Moderation
Through discussion students know and understand that difference in perspective need
not result in disaster and that people may believe in the same thing for different reasons.
5. Knowledge of Limitations
The student discovers what he did not know, what he has overlooked and wherein he
was mistaken both as to facts and the method of interpreting them. He may find out what
he knows and the surety with which he knows it.
6. Intellectual Teamwork
Discussion represents a type of intellectual teamwork resting on the principle that the
pooled knowledge, ideas’ and feelings of several persons have greater merit than those of a
single individual.
7. Tolerance
Discussion engenders toleration for views, which are at variance from those one holds.
8. Discovering Leaders
Discussion helps the teacher in discovering students with a potential for becoming
genuine leader.
3. PROJECT METHOD
The most concrete of all types of activity methods Project method provides learning
experiences suited to individual differences. Now here is a question that what is a project?
We can explain in these words that project is an activity willingly undertaken by the pupils
for the solution of a felt problem and leading to learning as prescribed in the curriculum.
It is concrete activity directed towards the learning of a significant skill or process. Having
a wide connotation project includes any activity like dramatics, pageants, making models,
drawing maps and charts, collecting pictures, preparing scrap books, going on historical
tours and exhibitions, preparation of Environmental Science wall newspaper, organization
of debates, etc. The project method transcends the subject -barrier because it is possible to
learn some literature, mathematics, art, etc., also while undertaking a project of
Environmental Science.
Basic Principles of the Project Method
1. Activity: The project involves mental or motor activity.
2. Purpose: Project should be purposeful, a felt need of the pupils.
3. Experience: Project should provide varied type of experiences to the pupils such as
manipulative, concrete, mental, etc.
4. Reality: Project should provide real experiences.
5. Freedom: the pupils should be free to undertake the different activities connected
with the project.
6. Utility: the activities undertaken in a project should be useful.
Steps of Project Method
1. Providing a situation
First of all, the project provides a suitable situation where the pupils feel a spontaneous
craving for carrying out a useful activity through conversation, discussion or exhibition of
pictures and models etc. the teacher discovers the interests, needs, tastes and aptitudes of
the children. While telling a story or taking the pupils out on a field trip initiates the pupils
to the world of projects, they are exposed to so many situations and they determine the
selection of the project. Enough opportunities should be given to the children to express
their ideas and to have discussions among themselves, as well as with the teacher. The
situations or problems provided to the pupils should be social as these provide better social
training and greater satisfaction.
2. Choosing
One of the important duties of the teacher is to so guide the pupils that they may
choose a good project.
3. Purposing
Kilpatrick has well said that the part of the pupil and part of the teacher in the most
of the school work depends largely on who does the purposing. It is practically the whole
thing. Purposing is the most important thing about a project. The teacher might fall a prey
to the temptation of making the choice of the project himself due to desire to get quick and
good results. This violates the most important principle of the method. The pupils should
make the final selection of the project. By self-choice and self-imposition pupils work
wholeheartedly and energetically. Thorough execution and successful completion of the project
they are stimulated to better planning. The teacher’s guidance to pupil-effort should not
hinder the development of the pupils who must make the final choice of the project. The
purpose must be common and acceptable to the whole class. The project “must enlist the
whole-hearted enlistment of the student.”
4. Teachers Role
The teacher should see that the projects satisfy a real felt need of the children and also
have educative potentialities. He should check that the’ pupils may not make a wrong
choice. He should forestall ill feelings arising out of failure. He should lead the students
tactfully to give up that choice and to make another. He should expose the pros and cons
of the project and1et the students reconsider their decision if the choice is not good. He
should resist the temptation of imposing his own idea on the pupil. Pupils do not take
interest in an activity thrust upon them.
5. Freedom and Utility
The pupils should be free to undertake the different activities connected with the
project. The activities undertaken in a project should be useful. Execution of the project
requires a lot of pupil activity. It is the longest of all steps. A series of activities have to be
taken up by the pupils such as collecting information, visiting places and peoples, interviewing
important personalities, consulting labels, observing specimens and curios, preparing maps
charts, diagrams and graphs of the data collected by various groups, surveying the locality,
studying books, keeping records, calculating prices, inquiring rates, writing letters, and
‘Thank you’ notes. The teacher should guide the pupils about the sources of relevant
information. He should provide them with necessary information sought for. He should
supervise the activities and watch the progress of the project. He should co-ordinate the
knowledge to be imparted through a project. He should see how an activity such as the
production of a play or a concert involves elocution, music, literature, craft-work, needleworld and art, along with the many calculations required in planning expenditure, keeping
accounts and producing a balance sheet or the practical science involved in stage lighting
and effects. The teacher should see that pupils get a variety of experiences and learn a good
deal as they undertake the activities.
6. Evaluation
In evaluation or appraisal of the work done the pupils must find out their shortcomings
and good points and review their work to find out that nothing has been omitted and that
the work has been carried out in accordance with the plan laid down. He should see that
mistakes committed are noted to serve as eye-openers for the future: Useful experiences and
successes should be reviewed to serve as good examples. The pupils should critically appraise
their work.
7. Recording
As impressions left unrecorded are likely to be wiped away from memory, pupils should
maintain a complete record of all activities connected with the project. Everything should
put down in the project book such as the choice of the project, ‘the discussions held, proposals
advanced and accepted, duties assigned, books and journals consulted, information sought
for, work undertaken, difficulties felt and experiences gained, short and long-term gains
obtained, self-appraisal important guidelines and future references etc. Thus, project-book
embodies the valuable experiences of the group. Well-prepared project books may be awarded
prizes to encourage the-pupils.
Teacher’s Role in the Project
1. As the teacher has got mature experience, deeper and broader knowledge than the
pupils, his guidance and prompting is indispensable. As the pupils are out on a
venture they need suggestions arid guidance at every step.
2. The teacher should save the pupils from faltering and floundering. He should give
help whenever it is required.
3. As a good prompter, just behind the curtain, the teacher should not make his
appearance on the stage for the stage is meant for the pupils.
4. As a keen observer and a true sympathizer the teacher should win the goodwill of
the pupils so that the pupils feel encouraged.
5. As a storehouse of information and knowledge the teacher should be able to anticipate
the difficulties and suggest remedies as and when necessary. The pupils might look
to him for help, guidance, solace and affection. As no method, however, good, is
superior to teachers, the need for devoted teachers is established.
Some examples of projects:
1. Story of Transportation through the Ages.
2. Akbar and his Age.
3. Mohammad and Islam.
4. The Age of the Ramayana.
5. The Mughal Age.
6. The Indian Renaissance.
7. Communication through the Ages.
8. One World,
9. Our Country.
10. Our City.
11. Our Food
12. Nationalist Movement in India.
13. Achievement After Independence in India.
14. The Socialist Movement.
15. Stages of Evolution of Human Beings.
Advantages of Project Method
1. Psychological.
Project method is planned in accordance with the psychological laws of learning. It
provides the most natural conditions of learning. Therefore, the child remembers the principles
learnt for a longer time.
2. Freedoms and Self-direction
Project method has an element of freedom. It is a method of self-direction. In it the
child learns to improvise, to invent, to experiment, to know in all ways possible and to
translate the knowledge into action. Thus, it develops the creative mind.
3. According to Maturity
According to the psychological concepts of maturation the Project method provides
learning material that suits one’s particular stage of mental development. While the more
mature pupils are given abstract and difficult features of the task in hand the simple leaner
are left to the others who are slow learners.
4. Social Benefits
As separate groups take responsibility for making their own contributions, which are
subsequently pooled and become the class effort, project method results in social benefits.
5. Training
Project method provides training for social adjustment. It develops the pupil’s capacity
to adapt themselves to their environment, to make use of whatever is available and to meet
a situation resourcefully.
6. Doing after Knowing
In project method the pupils learn and do because they understand the value of what
they learn and do in the carrying out their purpose. .
7. Democratic
Project method trains children in a democratic way of life. It encourages them to cooperate, to think and act together of a common goal. Teaching students to be responsible,
it gives them freedom within the framework of cooperative democracy.
8. Practical
Project method provides learning through practical problems by encouraging pupils to
achieve a deeper insight into principles through actually seeing them in operation.
9. Growth
Both the student and the teacher grow through project method. Stimulated by and
encouraged in his exploration of many materials the student approaches other areas of
learning in a similar manner. The teacher also grows in his understanding of a child’s
creative development.
10. Evaluation
An intrinsic standard of evaluation is set up in project method. As the pupils learn to
evaluate their own work, this evaluation reveals the mistakes and helps in rapid progress
and true learning.
Limitations of Project Method
1. Less Knowledge
While children taught by the project method often show astonishing knowledge of
details in odd things but they reveal real ignorance outside the projects. For example, while
an Environmental Science project may deal with construction of an ancient house with great
thoroughness yet the pupils may have no knowledge of the administration of Chandra
Gupta Maurya.
2. Difficult to Formulate
At a later stage of education, it is not easy to formulate projects having a satisfactory
degree of width and comprehensiveness.
3. Lack of Progress in Instruction
There is much difficulty in ensuring any kind of systematic progress in instruction.
4. Requires High Qualification of teachers
Very highly qualified teachers are required for success in this method. Teachers should
be zealous and well prepared.
The spirit of the project method is, in the words of Raymont, “whole-hearted purpose
on the part of the pupil.” It gives a wonderful practical approach to the learning of both
theoretical and practical problems. The responsibility of the success or otherwise of project
method rests with the teacher.
4. SOURCE METHOD
According to source method, pupils build up historical, political, social and economic
accounts, with the help of available sources, documents, historical accounts, biographies and
inscriptions, coins, travel accounts, religious and secular literature, etc. Pupils learn to know
about particular events to understand the process through which they arrive at the product.
Use the source method does not aim at converting the school children into full-fledged
historians and social scientists.
Objectives of Source Method
1. To enable the pupils to develop critical thinking by using the Sources and weighing
the evidence. .
2. To enable the pupils to form their own independent judgment through a critical
analysis of sources.
3. To develop skills of collecting data, sifting the relevant data organizing them and
interpreting them.
4. To create proper atmosphere to make the people and events of bygone times more
real to students.
5. To stimulate the imagination of the students for reconstruction of the past.
6. To develop and promote proper interest and right perspective inthe study of
Environmental Science.
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