Trees in the neighbourhood

Introduction: 

Most of the knowledge gained in the school is unfortunately from information in the text books. Students often don’t get a chance to observe, explore their environment and learn from it. They also don’t get a chance to develop their interest further by seeking information from other sources. The lesson plan gives an opportunity to students to explore their surroundings and experience it. It encourages them to feel connected to their environment, take responsibility for it and make a positive impact on it.  It gives them the opportunity to do independent research work and present the information in a cohesive manner. It also suggests a creative form of assessment. 

Objective: 

Students will:

• Locate and become more aware of the trees in their school environment.
• Identify the uses of the trees.
• Think about ways in which they can take responsibility for their environment and have a positive impact on it.
• Explore their school environment and create a realistic map of the trees within the school.

Steps: 

Step 1: Generating interest: (Time 10 mins)

The students could watch a video with a poem on trees to generate interest. 

If you cannot show them the video,  you could read out the poem (Resource 1&2).

Ask the students to freely express what they felt about it.                                                        

A poem or a song is a wonderful way to get children interested in what you are teaching.

Step 2:  Spotting trees in the school campus (30 mins)

Take the students for a walk around your school.

Instructions for students:

Identify some of the trees that you know and find out about the ones you don’t. Look very closely at each tree and its surroundings. As you do this, write down what you see, hear, feel, and smell in your notebook.

Here are some of the things that you could observe or note:

• What are the different living things that you see around the tree? 
• Feel the bark of the tree and describe how it feels. Make a rubbing of the bark. You can do that by holding a piece of paper against the bark and scribbling carefully over most of the paper with a blunt pencil or crayon. Note down the name of the tree next to the rubbing. Do the bark rubbings of different trees look different?  
• Wrap a tape measure around the tree and record its width. Measure the width of another tree that looks the same as the first. Which one do you think is older? Which is the the younger one? How do you know?

Step 3:  Worksheet (20 min)

Ask the students to attempt the worksheet (Resource 3) based on the tree walk.

Step 4: Tree quiz (15 min)

The students can watch the video "Common Indian trees and their uses" or be shown the presentation (Resource 4). They can answer the questions posed in the video/presentation and take their own notes about things that they did not know before. 

Assessment: 

Ask each student to make a little booklet on trees.

On one page of the booklet ask them to draw a tree. Next to it, ask them to write what they found out about the tree.

The booklets could be displayed in the class for everyone to go through. The task could be done over a week or so.

Students should be given time and encouraged to find out more about trees from other books in the library.

 

Making a booklet is an interesting way of testing students. It gives the students a chance to express their creativity and the teachers an opportunity to find out how much their students have learnt. It also gives him/her the scope to know more about the students’ expression, spelling, handwriting and presentation skills. It ensures the students’ involvement with the task and makes assessment an enjoyable yet meaningful task for both teachers and students.