2 Thinking about the learning environment

People put a considerable amount of time and energy into making their home surroundings as pleasant as possible. Making your classroom welcoming and interesting will help to engage your students in learning science. Magazines and newspapers are a helpful resource as they often have articles and pictures that are relevant to the science curriculum. You can also display your students’ work.

Activity 2: Making your classroom more interesting and exciting.

Start to keep a file or box of interesting articles and pictures to use in displays. Keep your eyes and ears open. Keep up to date with current and contemporary affairs across your local state, India and around the world. Any story related to science from any source is worth keeping. You never know when it might be useful!

When you have collected a number of pictures and articles, make a display relevant to the topics you are currently teaching. You could include some of your students’ work and you could ask some students to help you in preparing the display.

In Case Study 2, Mr Gupta describes how he improved the classroom environment by creating wall displays and gathering relevant items.

Case Study 2: Mr Gupta decorates his classroom

Mr Gupta reflects on how he used magazine and newspaper cuttings to decorate his classroom in a colourful and cheap way.

I had to travel into our nearby city one day to see a relative. We met in a hotel and while I was waiting I noticed that there were some interesting magazines on the tables in the reception area that had very good pictures of many unusual animals and their habitats. It occurred to me that these could be used in a wall display in my classroom. I asked the receptionist if she had any old magazines that I could take away. She gave me a large pile. Later I went into a few other hotels and they also gave me some magazines and travel brochures. I was surprised at how easy it was to collect these magazines.

Back at home I found more pictures in old newspapers which I carefully cut out, along with the photos from the magazines. We were about to start the topic ‘life processes’ so I made three displays relevant to that topic. On one display, I collected pictures of plants, with some questions: ‘How do plants make food?’ and ‘What are the transport systems in plants?’ I also put a white flower in a vase of water. I put some food colouring in the water, and gradually the flower turned blue. It was very helpful when we got on to the section on ‘transport in plants’.

On another display, I used pictures of people engaged in sport, with questions like ‘Where does he get his energy from?’ and ‘What sort of nutrition does she need?’ Finally, I used some adverts for medical supplements and a photograph of a hospital to create a display about maintaining a healthy heart. I stuck up all of the cuttings on the wall in my classroom. It took me a little while to get them arranged so that they looked appealing. I also wrote out the questions on some white paper which looked like a banner by the time I had finished with it.

The reaction from all my classes was the same when they walked into the room for the first time – that of amazement and great interest. Afterwards, a few students brought me some pictures they had found, inspired by seeing my display. During the topic, I was able to use the display to prompt discussion. It made the room seem more homely and it was such an easy thing to do. It certainly helped my students to see the relevance of the topics we were studying in class.

1 Being a resourceful teacher in a challenging context

3 Using the local community and environment as resources