Teacher Training Curriculum on Environmental Issues | Page 16

As progress is made in assembling the original material, students are encouraged to transfer their
work to the puppet booth or performance stage.
The ideas are many and it is up to the educators to help pupils use their fantasy to create.
Biology: Education of ecology as well as the Global Goals 14 and 15, can be made interesting by
making recycle pet bottle terrarium. A workshop where pupils make fantasy animals from
recyclable waste materials and taxonomic classification can be used to teach ecology and
taxonomy25.
Recycle plastic container bird feeders can be made and hung up in the
school ground to study winter activity of birds in the area. One can
also collaborate with the local university/ nature organisation to study
the colour changes of the Autumn leaves in deciduous trees in
different parts of the town, study the diversity of local deciduous trees
like oak, maple, elm, etc. and trying to find out if and how climate
change has affected it can make learning interesting and motivational.
Effects of hazardous substance in the water can be tested in practical lessons by trying to grow peas
or other plants in contaminated water. To understand the effects of oil spills in the sea on birds and
other animals and also to get some idea on the different sanitation methods, pupils can test oil spill
experiments in the laboratory26.
Examining photographs and drawings of a representative group of insects such as dragonfly, ant,
dragonfly, beetle, cricket, bee and butterfly and if possible getting the young learners to visit the
local University to see a collection of the actual samples of insects and comparing them with
drawings/photographs can lead to active discussion in and outside the classroom. Photographs and
illustrations can also be used to identify and discuss the main physical characteristics of insects, i.e.,
six legs, three main body parts (head, thorax, and abdomen).
A field trip to the local meadow and letting pupils become botany detectives with a mission of
finding a particular plant from the picture or part of a picture or clues provided can also give more
active learning.
Arrangements should be made for students to go out in the field to observe what they have learned
in the classroom. This is important because these kinds of outings expose them to a real world
perspective on the classroom-based subject, and provide an easily grasped context for their
responsibilities as it pertains to sustaining the environment. For a project such as this, a trip to the
botanical gardens or a nature walk where students can observe butterflies and bees at work
pollinating flowering plants can be a wonderful starting point to
deepen the discussion on the importance of sustainability when we
change the environment in the name of human progress.
Chemistry: Teachers can, while teaching about chemical bonds,
discuss how carbon‟s chemical structure is connected to global
climate change (Church and Skelton) Global Goal 13. While teaching
carbon cycle, one can link it to the ecological footprint of the shirt or
the dress the pupil is wearing. This will bring up interesting
25 See Appendix for instructions on fantasy animal.
26 See Appendix for instructions on lab for oil spills.

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