USE OF IMMEDIATE ENVIRONMENT IN TEACHING AND LEARNING OF BASIC SCIENCE

TABLE OF CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE – – – – – – – – I
DECLARATION PAGE – – – – – – – II
APPROVAL PAGE – – – – – – – – III
DEDICATION – – – – – – – – – IV
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS – – – – – – – V
TABLE OF CONTENTS – – – – – – – VI
ABSTRACT – – – – – – – – – IX

CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1. BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY – – – – – 1
1.2. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM – – – – – 4
1.3. PURPOSE OF THE STUDY – – – – – – 6
1.4. RESEARCH QUESTIONS – – – – – – 6
1.5. RESEARCH HYPOTHESES – – – – – – 7
1.6. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY – – – – – 7
1.7. SCOPE OF THE STUDY – – – – – – 9
1.8. DELIMITATION OF THE STUDY – – – – – 9
1.9. DEFINITION OF TERMS – – – – – 10

CHAPTER TWO
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
2.0 INTRODUCTION – – – – – – – – 13
2.1 THE CONCEPT OF SCIENCE – – – – – 13
2.2 SCIENCE IN IMMEDIATE ENVIRONMENT – – – 15
2.3 THE CONCEPT OF TEACHING – – – – – 17
2.4 THE CONCEPT OF LEARNING – – – – – 18
2.5 ENVIRONMENTAL RESOURCES FOR TEACHING AND BASIC
SCIENCE – – – – – – – – 20
2.6 BASIC SCIENCE CURRICULUM – – – – – 22
2.7 FIELD TRIP OR EXCURSION – – – – – 23
2.8 AIMS AND OBJECTIVE OF BASIC SCIENCE – – – 25
CHAPTER THREE
METHOD AND PROCEDURE
3.0 INTRODUCTION – – – – – – – 28
3.1 RESEARCH DESIGN – – – – – – 28
3.2 POPULATION of the study – – – – – – 29
3.3 SAMPLE AND SAMPLING TECHNIQUES – – – 30
3.4 INSTRUMENT FOR DATA COLLECTION- – – – 31
3.5 METHOD OF DATA ANALYSIS – – – – – 32

CHAPTER FOUR
PRESENTATION OF DATA AND DISCUSSION
4.1 INTRODUCTION – – – – – – – 33
4.2 PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS OF RESULTS – – 34
4.3 RESEARCH FINDINGS – – – – – 47

CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDIES
5.1 SUMMARY OF FINDINGS – – – – – – 49
5.2 CONCLUSION – – – – – – – – 50
5.3 RECOMMENDATION – – – – – – – 50
REFERENCES – – – – – – – – 52
APPENDICES – – – – – – – – 54

ABSTRACT
The researcher examined the use of immediate environment of the learners to enhance teaching and learning of Basic Science in some selected secondary schools in Kanke Local Government Area of Plateau State. The project aims at revealing the immediate environment which has some natural phenomena in which science can be learned; immediate environment as a potential laboratory, twenty two teachers’ opinion and forty nine students’ opinion were sampled about the topic. Both the teachers and the students expressed positive opinions on the use of the immediate environment as valuable resources for an effective teaching and learning of Basic Science.

CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study
According to New standard encyclopedia (2004), environment is a surrounding of organisms which includes plants and animals as well as such non–living constituents such as water, air, light, soil and temperature.
Also the children Britannica (2000) regards environment as all the conditions in which plants and animals live and everything that affects its life form.
For the purpose of this research, environment can be defined as anything that makes up the physical aspect of life around us such as plants, animals, elements, matter and those in conjunction with chemical surrounding interacting with us and those around us that are useful to the individual as a being.
Science has a great impact on human daily life. The scientific knowledge was accumulated from the nature or the physical world, is used to produce tools, machines, medical drops and other beneficial products for man uses. Basic science as a subject in primary and junior secondary schools level is not only made up of biology, chemistry and physics, but it includes sociology, mathematics, computer science, geography, and agricultural science etc. The basic teaching and learning of basic science is to stimulate and direct the students in attaining major learning objectives. The immediate environment is a property used in teaching and learning basic science which will create new discovering, manipulating skills etc. which will be a new awareness in students.
The improper use of basic science curriculum which is not capable of providing critical experiences, that enrich the students’ minds and mold them towards scientific methods such as observation, identification, classification, inference, experiment etc occur because of inadequate used of immediate environment in teaching and learning basic science subject, in the class, teaching method which centers on the teacher not the learners. Thus the lack of discovery, curiosity and scientific interest is not developed in the students, due to ineffective use of materials or improvisation and exposing the students to environment at potentials which are rich with scientific discovery, such had been the major setback to scientific development in junior secondary schools in Kanke Local Government Area of Plateau State.
The research aim or interest in the studies is to insist the use of immediate environment in teaching and learning of basic science in our secondary schools.
According to Ogunniyi, Okebukola and Fatumwase (2008), the whole environment is a potential laboratory in educational circle, the concept of a child environment embrace all the circumstances the child. It also extends from the physical environment to the biological environment of the child. There is several science lessons taught in the classroom or even laboratories which will have more meaning to one quarter of the students in the class. But in fact, if taught the students outside where the materials or the things talked about could be seen, it will have more meaning to all the class learners. The teaching of basic science in secondary schools should make the learners to view things in their environment in which they live. This will make learning of basic science subject clearer because the things taught are what the students normally see, touch, use, and feel always. This will bring life closer to the students’ understanding specially places such as zoo, factories, ponds, botanical gardens etc.
If the students are led to discover these facts, it will motivate their minds toward studying science not only in the classroom, but to also expose to the immediate environment. The students would start conducting some experiments in their various homes based on what they had seen and learned in the immediate environment. To teach the students to produce science apparatus from local materials encourages them to learn science and develop process skills as manipulative skills.
The use of immediate environment in teaching and learning of basic science is of great advantages, if successfully exploited. This could lead to self employment of the educated youths in future, the society will become science oriented and a stage will be set for a high technology. In these ways, schools should try as much as possible to expose their students to the immediate environment in teaching and learning of basic science subjects through field trips.
1.2 Statement of the Problem
The problem of teaching and learning basic science subject had been often taken place within the school laboratory or classroom always. The immediate environment has been seriously over looked for effective teaching and learning of basic science subject. The students think that science generally is only be studied within the classroom and the laboratory, many basic science teachers make basic science subject very difficult to the learners due to the use of improved materials. Teachers use foreign examples and names of things (elements, equipment) far away from the reach of the students. They intend not to use the obtainable things within the immediate environment of the learners which could stimulate the interest of the students.
Child immediate environment is always rich in natural materials, but is not used for effective teaching and learning of science.
Evidence has been provided in the support of the use of immediate environment, according to STAN (2005), “Alley using community resources and natural environment to provide additional evidence. And may serve as an extension of the laboratory to supplement what has been taught in the classroom, secure definite information of a particular issue and arouse the interest of the students”. For example, it has been demonstrated that the child ability to learn and understand is partly depend on his environment. This is due to the extent to which he is exposed to his immediate environment and intellectual stimulation wherever he finds himself.
The problem of our secondary schools is that they have not given more time to the immediate environment when teaching and learning basic science subject. It is a big problem for the basic science teachers in the secondary schools to be enable to improve instructional materials or going on excision for the effective use of the school curriculum.
1.3 Purpose of the Study
The purpose of this study is:
i. To show that immediate environment is a potential laboratory.
ii. To teach our students how to attempt some of the questions that arises from observations of his immediate environment.
iii. To examine the use of immediate environment, make use of the immediate environment for their studying, investigation and to discover facts of science themselves to the teachers, the immediate environment serves as instructional materials.
iv. To enable the teachers to improvised materials for teaching and learning basic science using the common materials within the immediate environment.
1.4 Research Questions
The following research questions were formulated by the researcher:
1. Do basic science teachers in Kanke Local Government Area use immediate environment as a potential laboratory for teaching and learning basic science?
2. Do basic science teachers prefer immediate environment as a natural phenomenon that will stimulate the method of teaching and learning basic science?
3. Are the teachers having interest in using local names to facilitate the understanding in learning of basic science?
4. Do field trips stimulate and bring things in a closer view to students which cannot be brought into the classroom or laboratory?
Do improvisation of local available materials by the teachers and students reduces foreign exchange?
1.5 Research Hypothesis
The research raised the following hypotheses during the course of the study:
1. There is no significant difference between immediate environment and teaching basic science.
There is no significant difference between immediate environment and learning basic science.
1.6 Significance of the Study
The significance of the study is to help the government, researchers and the general public in reducing the problem of non availability of instructional materials in teaching and learning of basic science in our classroom. It also reduces the rate of foreign exchange by government in annual importation of science apparatus and equipments for the schools. This is because the cost of importing the apparatus and equipments is high, sometimes the apparatus are delicate to handle for learners or difficult for science teachers to operate, if not guided by a specialist. But if we can use the immediate environment where the students are taught to produce or made these apparatus locally, the materials use from the immediate environment will improve the learners’ rate of discovery to the society and the country at large. It will also guide other researchers to find more ways or means of improving their existing local materials or improvisation useful for the teaching and learning of science in secondary schools in Kanke Local Government Area of Plateau state and beyond.
1.7 Scope of the Study
For the promotion of this research work, eight (8) secondary schools in Kanke Local Government Area are used for the study.
These include viz:
1. Government secondary school Ampang east.
2. Government secondary school Dungung
3. Government secondary school Kabwir
4. Fundamental private school Kabwir
5. Government college Ampir
6. Ben Jonah science secondary school Amper
7. Government secondary school Tom-tom Garram
8. Diamond secondary school Garram
The above selected schools comprised four (4) government secondary schools and community secondary schools. This is within the four (4) districts of the local government area.
1.8 Delimitation
The researcher’s work will be invited to the area covered due to lack of time to cover more areas because he had to combine the research work with his own studies.
The difficulty of transportation fair to go round all the local government areas where secondary schools are located is a challenge. The researcher will also face the difficulties of responses during administering the questionnaire.
1.9 Operational Definition of terms
The researcher clearly defines the following terms at the course of the study to facilitate the study or the work.
1. Environment: this is the immediate surroundings in which we live; it could be far or near. Environment is a place where man, animals, plants and other micro – organisms live. The components of environment include land, water, air, and weather.
2. Immediate environment: this is a surrounding within which someone can reach see and even feel it components.
3. Teaching: it is an activity which involves training, indoctrinating, instructing and conducting. Teaching on the other hand can also be seen as the process of attending to people’s needs, experiences and feelings and making specific interventions to help them learn particular things.
4. Learning: this is defined as the act of acquiring new or modifying and reinforcing existing knowledge, behavior, skills, values, norms or preferences which may lead to a potential in synthesizing information, depth of the knowledge, attitude or behavior relative to the type and the range of experience. On the other hand, learning is seen as knowledge acquired by systematic study in any field of scholarly application.
5. Teacher: a teacher is a person who helps other to acquire knowledge, competences or values. Educationally, a teacher is seen as any person who received knowledge in a prescribed teachers’ college and is capable of teaching in either primary, secondary, post – primary or tertiary institutions and by such doing, he earns a living.
6. Learner: a learner is someone who is systematically learning or studying in any field of scholars in order to acquire knowledge useful in life. A learner could be student, pupil, apprentice or trainee.
7. Science: this can be defined as the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment.
8. Basic science: this is a subject that is taught in junior secondary schools to help preparing students to learn higher science in senior secondary schools and the higher institutions. It comprises of three main science subjects which include: biology, chemistry and physics. Other related science subjects are Geography, Agricultural Science, Sociology, Biochemistry, geophysics etc.
9. Improvisation: this is defined as the process of creating or making something spontaneously or without preparation or making something from whatever that is available. Improvisation can also be seen as a process or method use to solve a particular problem with the tools and materials that are immediately at hand.
10. Instructional materials: instructional materials are the materials used during teaching and learning to facilitate the effective and efficient of instruction. Instructional materials include textbooks, real objects, maps charts, globes etc.