By Sunila Bhalla Mehan
Emergence of environmental education as a compulsory subject at school level is a welcome development. India can protect and restore environmental and natural resources by spreading awareness on such issues among its citizens. Teaching of environmental education can be an important vehicle.
We have to create awareness about the environment and an attitude of caring and sharing of natural resources in the minds of those children who are the future citizen of our nation. The importance of sensitising students on environmental issues has led the Supreme Court to deliver a judgment on 18th December 2003 and direct NCERT to prepare a model syllabus for environmental education for different classes, which has been prepared under the title ?Environmental Education in Schools, June 2004?. From the academic session 2004- 2005, environment education has been introduced as a compulsory subject at all levels in the school curriculum.
Models of teaching: All these models are specific objective oriented. The work of Bruce Joyce & Marsha Weil (1972) has transformed different theories into different models of teaching, which can be easily used by teachers for classroom teaching in schools. These models are based on dependable theories of teaching established only during last decade.
Generally, a model of teaching consists of six elements termed as fundamental elements, namely focus, syntax principle of reaction, social system, support system and evaluation system. At present there exists a variety of models of teaching, which are based on theories of learning and teaching developed in various fields. These models have been labeled under four families by Marsha Weil and Bruce Joyce (1985) on the basis of chief emphasis on each model. In each family there is a group of models.
As concept learning in environment education forms an important component of the study. Concept learning is a composite term consisting of two parts — concept and learning. Concept is a critical component of an individual’s cognitive structure. Concepts are the building blocks for the structure of knowledge about the environment. Learning is a transactional process. An individual organises whatever he receives by the way of information from whatever source. According to current conceptual system, the learning of concepts is of utmost importance for elementary school students as they learn and communicate with the help of ‘concepts’. The acquisition of knowledge is possible only through concept learning because knowledge is a chain of concepts. In the present article only three models have been considered. These include: Concept Attainment Model of Teaching (CAM); Inquiry Training Model of Teaching (ITM); Traditional Model of Teaching (Conventional Model of Teaching).
Concept Attainment Model of Teaching: J S Bruner (1956) has developed this teaching model. In this model the teacher enables the students to describe similarities and relationship among things of the environment. The model emerged out of the study of thinking process in human beings. It is based on the assumption that environment is full of diverse things and it would have been impossible to adjust in it if human beings did not have the capacity to discriminate and to categorise things in groups. This classification helps the mankind in many ways.
The first concept attainment model is concept attainment under reception conditions. A second variation of the model is the concept attainment game under selection conditions and the third variation is the analysis of the concepts in unorganised data. The reception model is more direct in teaching students the elements of a concept and then using them in concept attainment. The selection model permits students to apply this awareness of conceptual activity more actively by using their own initiation and control. The third variation of this model transfers concept theory and attainment activity to a real life setting using unorganised data. In the present article only concept attainment model under reception condition has been used. According to Bruner (1956), any concept has five elements (1) Name (2) Examples (positive and negative) (3) Attributes — essential and non-essential (4) Attribute values and (5) Rule. Understanding a concept means knowing all the elements of the concept. This model has three phases. Phase one deal with presentation of data and identification of concept. Phase two describes the test attainment of the concept and phase three involves analysis of thinking strategies.
Inquiry Training Model: This model has been designed by J Richard Suchman (1962). He developed this model by analysing method employed by creative research personnel especially physical scientists. He identified the elements of inquiry process and built them into an instructional model called as Inquiry Training Model. It implies both inductive as well as deductive types of reasoning. The students are active participants in the procedure of finding a solution. The inquiry training model has five phases. Phase one encounters the problem. It explains procedure and presentation of events. Phase two deals with gathering of data. It verifies the nature of objects conditions and occurrence of problem situations. Phase three involves experimentation. Phase four formulates rules and explanations. Phase five deals with analysis of inquiry process leading to more strategies. The principle of the model is based on a teacher helping students to inquire and discuss.
Conventional Model of Teaching (Traditional Model of Teaching): In this model the teacher is the centre of the classroom activities performed in the teaching-learning process. The teacher presents the entire content of the learning. The student plays the role of passive listening only. In this model usually teachers do not usually preplan their lessons, objectives are not related to behavioural terms, and stepwise evaluation of knowledge attainment by the students is not undertaken during teaching.
In the present article this approach has been adopted with certain modifications. Here the teacher plays a pivotal role in the teaching learning process of the classroom. Lesson plans have been prepared before hand. Objectives of the lesson in behavioural terms have been incorporated in the plan. The teacher has attempted to evaluate the attainment of the knowledge by the students at different stages of the lesson.
Objectives: The present article was written with the following objectives in mind: To provide every student with opportunities to acquire the knowledge about the environment its protection and improvement. To observe and create new patterns of behaviour in the society for better adjustment according to the environmental needs. To foster a clear concept about economic, social, political and ecological areas of environment. To help the individual to acquire skills for identifying and solving environmental problems. To develop scientific attitude, motivation and creativity towards environment protection. To compare and study the effects of Concept Attainment Model Inquiry Training Model and Traditional Model of Teaching on environmental awareness of classes 6th, 7th and 8th through various subjects — language, social science and general science — in curriculum as prescribed by Punjab School Education Board.
Design – sample and tools of study: The study comes under the experiment method of research. In this study control group pretest-post test design was followed. Three groups of the subjects work were considered. There were only girl students of elementary classes — 6th, 7th, and 8th. Three sections were considered. Each section had 40 subjects. Two groups were treated as experimental groups and the third group as control group. One of the two experimental groups was taught environment related topics by Concept Attainment Model and the second group was taught by Inquiry Training Model and the third group was taught by Conventional Model (Traditional Model). The topics were selected from three subject only — general science, social studies and English language. The selected topics were concerned with the environment directly or indirectly.
The sample: Since it was not possible for an individual investigator to conduct study on all grade levels of elementary section. Only upper elementary classes — i.e. 6th-7th and 8th classes — were considered. All the students were divided into three sections for each class. These sections were renamed as Experimental Group A; Experimental Group B and Section C as Control Group. Assuming that the strength of the samples at the terminal stage may reduce, more than 40 students in each section were considered. The environment awareness achievement tests were constructed by the teacher herself. The statement of the questions was in both languages — English and Punjabi.
Tools: The following tools were used for the study.
Lesson plans: The investigator managed the preparations of lesson plans by joint efforts of the science teachers, language experts and social science subject experts, according to the lesson plan guides as developed by Bruce and Weil (1985). Different types of lesson plans were prepared by using Concept Attainment Model, Inquiry Training Model and Traditional Model of Teaching.
Criterion Test (Environment Awareness Achievement Test): To evaluate the initial and terminal environment awareness of the subjects in general science, social studies and languages, the English teacher?s achievement test was considered. Each test was divided into three sections. Section 1 for general science, Section II for English language and Section III for social studies. Each section carried 30 marks,
Environmental Activity: Environmental activity was done by the students to have direct experience of the environment in the real life under the supervision of teacher. This activity carried 10 marks.
Procedure of data collection: After giving treatment to the subjects, the answer sheets for the environment awareness achievement test were collected. The data of the study was collected in two stages. In the first stage, data of initial behaviour was collected through environmental awareness (pre test) before the treatment. In the second stage, after the termination of the treatment, it was the data of terminal behaviour of the sample again through environmental awareness achievement (post test). Scoring was done and data was collected. Means and standard deviations were calculated for three classes. Data was analysed to see the effect of experimental models of teaching on environmental awareness of 6th, 7th and 8th classes.
Results and finding: Analysis of data revealed that pre test scores of three classes did not differ much significantly in environmental awareness of initial behaviour among the three groups of the samples.
Observation of data of 6th class indicated that most significant change in environmental awareness comes through Inquiry training model. The second higher change comes by teaching the student in traditional model. The students taught by concept attainment were least effected. Similarly, in case of 7th class, inquiry training Model was the most effective, and then comes concept attainment model and the least effective was traditional model. In case of class 8th the concept attainment model has affected the student most. The inquiry training model of teaching has its place in increasing the environment awareness and the traditional model comes at the last place. Thus we can say that the three models of teaching have affected the students significantly regarding environmental awareness. The inquiry training model has effected the students most. Then comes the concept attainment model and the traditional model comes the last in effectiveness.
The effectiveness about environmental awareness through subjects like general science, English and science studies is significant at elementary level. General science has been most effective, and then comes language. Social study occupies the third place.
Conclusions: In the light of above results it is concluded that inquiry training model of teaching has effected the student most. The concept attainment model has its place in increasing the environment awareness of elementary students. The students taught by traditional model have not shown any significant gain regarding environment awareness.
Educational Implications: Environment education is broad based and is strongly related with basic principles of general education. The various models of teaching environmental education have been useful in improving the quality of education through different subjects in different classed, especially at elementary level. Environmental education helps to produce citizens who are environmentally knowledgeable and skilled. It leads them towards maintaining a dynamic equilibrium between quality of life and quality of the environment.
(The writer is a research scholar in G.N.D.U, Amristar.)
