248 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE
(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
- 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.”
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.