ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE : FIELD TRIP 247
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 schoolA. 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.
- 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
- 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, whole-
sale and retail establishments, libraries and the like. - 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.