Biology is as much all around us as physics and it may be the more wondrous subject of the two. Somehow the reality on the ground is quite to the contrary – biology is a distant cousin of physics and chemistry. Biology can be easily demonstrated in every garden, field, kitchen, bedroom or even while looking into a mirror. It is a captivating subject, which needs to be ‘taught’ to children in a way that they start to appreciate the magical properties and prowess of organic processes inside and all around us.
Interestingly, in kindergarten and lower classes, children are easily excited by seeing a seed come to life and germinate, caterpillars crawling and eating leaves, pets and their little ones, flowers and butterflies, everything fascinates them. A visit to a park makes biologists out of them; plants, flowers, seedpods, seeds, leaves, trees, shrubs – everything needs to be seen, touched, smelled and experienced in as many ways as possible. They soak in everything using all their senses. Life enthrals them so much that even inanimate objects come to live in their play.
As children get to middle school, something happens and they lose interest in learning biology with the natural curiosity and enthusiasm they lived with as children in kindergarten. Someone rightly said, ‘I learnt all things about life in preschool.’
Somewhere in higher classes, learning biology becomes all about memorising and getting good scores in tests and exams. Most children switch off from biology when they are not guided to see any real life context for learning. We need to change the context of biology to address concerns of personal and community survival in times when issues of global warming have to be addressed, unknown diseases need to be identified and prevented, and human aspiration to live a long and healthy life has to be dealt with, besides all the issues of teens.
One of the biggest errors while studying biology is focusing on one particular area of the subject in such detail that the larger picture is lost and children forget to link the information together. Putting the pieces of the jigsaw together aids the understanding of purpose of exploring a thing. For example, linking evolution, plants and xylem and phloem, immune cells, cell processes, pathogen makes it easier to understand it all.
While studying the living world, one should constantly remind children that whil they are studying that part of life, they themselves are also part of the life being studied. Often teachers and students alike focus so highly on individual pieces of information crammed into the syllabus to get them through exams that they forget that live scientific demonstrations of the course material is constantly going on in their surroundings.
Specifically, learning biology can be made more effective and interesting by using some of the following strategies:
- Start from general and move on to specific.
- Study about things that are near or can be seen and then the things that are far or cannot be seen.
- While studying any living organism, proceed from outside the body of the organism to inside it, the parts, their functions and how everything adds up and make the organism suitable for its surroundings.
- Living samples or live-like model of the subject under study make biology more interesting.
- Some comparative study between organisms makes the understanding better and helps children see the diversity, evolutionary adaptations and differences for survival.
- While studying the nonliving surroundings, move from simple to complex ideas. For example water > rain > water-cycle > flood and draught > pollution etc.
- Children should study the nonliving elements in our surrounding such as air, water, temperature, moisture etc., and then the interaction between these elements.
- Studying the interaction between the living and the nonliving and the big picture of the importance of nonliving things for living things; that organisms adapt to changes in the environment so as to make the best use of available resources needs to be highlighted.
- While learning about a biological process first fix the start and end and then explore the steps in between through logical thinking.
- Reading science magazines and books (and there are many interesting books now) followed by specific exploration of the rich content on the Internet will present biology as a very personally important and interesting area of knowledge.
- Put the knowledge of biology to test in children’s daily activities. For example, after playing a sport or running, discuss about the processes that are happening in the body such as what is making the heart beat faster, and how and what made the muscles move and ache? On seeing a bee on a flower, discuss about what is the bee doing and how such a small creature is essential for life on earth.
- Children often find terms in biology to be complicated and difficult to spell. This makes them not only afraid, but also makes them memorise strange names, which they do not understand. Most terms in biology have their roots in Latin and have prefix and suffix. Identify the prefixes, suffixes and the Latin root that composes the terms and this will greatly help in spelling the terms and also in grasping the meaning of the terms. For example, photosynthesis is made up of two words photo and synthesis, where photo = light and synthesis = create, that is, the process that creates in the presence of light. Going through the Latin prefixes and suffixes would be a greatly playful thing too.
Last but not the least, current affairs must be among the important arsenal in the hands of parents and teachers in order to teach biology. Pollution, diseases, stress, adulteration, war, etc. are all excellent ‘sources’ to explore biology. Let us explore how the news about the breakout of Ebola in the African continent can be linked to generating interesting context to introduce and discuss something important in biology (such as micro organism in the case of Ebola).
Preventing Ebola is a topical problem around which classroom activities can be designed to develop skills in self-directed learning, information retrieval, analytical behaviour, creative and critical thinking. The activity should eventually suggest the causes and possible treatments. Along with learning about micro-organisms, students develop skills of disciplined analysis, reflective thinking, problem-solving and learn to ask sagacious questions, a key skill for scientists and citizens seeking awareness.
For example, with the case study of Ebola, the following knowledge will eventually emerge:
- Different types of diseases – infectious and non-infectious
- The causative organism of diseases
- Causative organism of Ebola in particular
- The characteristics of virus
- How do virus multiply
- How do diseases spread
- How does Ebola in particular spread
- Signs and symptoms of Ebola
- Prevention the spreading of Ebola
- What are the possible cures for the disease
The Ebola case study readily demonstrates that topical human challenges are gold mines of opportunities to make biology interesting. The following is a listing of a current set of challenges, which could be used for attractively getting into biology – human pathologies, local pollution, local industry, natural disasters, cancer, genetically modified foods, sports medicine, drug abuse, fad diets, sexually-transmitted diseases, overpopulation, climate and environmental issues, evolution political controversies, alternative medicine and health-fraud, bio-terrorism, or influenza pandemics.
We wish to see a mass upsurge in teaching and learning of Biology.
