SLU English 14 SBP - the environment and you

1. ENGLISH
STUDENT LEARNING UNIT 14
The Environment and You

2. STUDENT LEARNING UNIT 14
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The Environment and You
Before we start………….
Taking care of our homes and surroundings and thinking about the welfare of people who are dear to us
or live in our neighbourhood comes naturally to most of us. But have you thought about how each of us is
connected to a much larger community and how our actions can affect the lives of people who live in the
next town or village or even in a different country? For example, if the trees in a forest such as in the
Amazon jungle are cut down on a large scale, it could affect the temperatures all over the world. If an
industry in a nearby town dumped a lot of poisonous material in a river that flows through your town, it
will affect the water you use to drink.
This is the reason all of us must become aware of the damage we can do and work to take care of our
environment. This SLU is all about how you can make a difference.
Activity 1: A bird survey
Work with your friends on this small project.
Make a list of all the birds that live in the area. If you cannot identify all the birds, write a brief
description and ask your biology teacher to help you identify the names of the birds.
Talk to some elders in your village or town and ask them if they know of any birds which are not
on your list. Ask them if these were birds they saw in their childhood in your village. Make a list of
these birds.
Has there been a change in the kind of birds that visit the village? If this is so, try to find out why
those birds no longer come to the village.

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DO YOU KNOW ?
(Illustration or image of sparrow)
Activity 2: Making a bird sanctuary
If you are interested in birds, you can make a small bird sanctuary in your school or near your house.
Place a basin of water in a quiet place. A shady spot near some trees or bushes would be best. If there are
too many people walking around, birds will be afraid to come. You can put a few grains of rice or other
seeds near the basin of water.
After this, wait for the birds to come. Be patient because it may take the birds some time to discover your
sanctuary.
Once the birds start coming, you can maintain a journal. Here are some things you can look for and note
down.
• Make a list of the birds that come - write a few lines describing them if you can't identify them.
Then find out the local names of the bird. You can also find out the biological names. Ask your
teacher or look up books in the library. E.g. the biological name of the house sparrow is passer
domesticus.
• Do the same birds come every day ?
• When do most birds come?
20 March has been named the World Sparrow Day. Why is there a special
day named for these birds ?
Sparrows have almost disappeared from many large cities across India.
Ornithologists, specialists who study birds, say that these birds do not like
to build their nests in high rise buildings. Also because of pollution in the
city and the use of insecticides, they can't find enough worms to feed their
chicks.
World Sparrow Day wants to make people aware of how a major species
can completely disappear if we do not take action. The Box Initiative was
started in the city of Mumbai Box to help keep the remaining birds in the
city. They put up little wooden boxes on trees for sparrows to use as nests.
They also put some grain, worms and water close to the trees for the
sparrows to feed themselves and their young.

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• Which are the more dominant birds ?
• What do they use your bird bath for ?
• Once you have kept your bird journal for a month, you could choose a bird to write about and put
it up on the notice board for other students to read.
Activity 3: Making changes in your environment
1. For this activity, you need to look around you and carefully observe the places you know well.
Sometimes when you are very familiar with a place you don't notice a lot of things that are happening there
because they are so much a part of your everyday life. So take a look at three very familiar places - your
home, your school and your village. Observe the things people do in these places for a few days. Make a
note of all the practices that you don't like because they make the environment unhealthy. Then decide
three things that you would change to create a better environment.
A. In your home:
Look around your house - your kitchen, your bathroom, the area immediately outside your home.
Describe three practices at home that you want to change. For example, how water is stored and used, is
it wasted, etc. What exactly would you do to decrease waste , how would you use water more efficiently,
etc. ?
B. In your school:
Describe three things / practices that you want to change at school. How would you want to change them?
Would you talk to your friends and classmates and ask them to help you to clean up, or talk to other
students in your class to prepare programmes for the morning assembly, etc.
Activity 4:
Discuss with your friends some of the environmental problems in your village. Make a list of these. For
example,
• plastic waste

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• waste of dangerous material like chemicals dumped close to your village or in ponds
• open drains which are blocked up
You can add more to this list.
Now put them in order of priority. Decide which problem is most serious and put it at the top of the list.
Then put the next most serious problem, and so on.
The next step is to identify the problem you and your friends can work on. For example, you decide that
you can work on the following problem: the way waste is disposed of or handled in the village. Discuss
with your friends, how you will go about doing this.
Can you get people in your village to help you? How will you convince them that there is a problem and
they should volunteer to help? Will you start a poster campaign? Will you do a small skit and invite people
to come and watch it ?
Write down your action plan. It could look something like this.
1. The problem: .......................................................................................................................................................................
2. A poster campaign:
Make a rough sketch of your poster or posters. What words or drawings will you put in ? How many
posters are you thinking of making ? What materials will you need ? Where will you get the materials
from ? How much would it cost, etc.

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3. Decide the date when you want to do the poster campaign. Where will you put up the posters ?
(Add more details as you think necessary.)
Show your action plan to your teacher and ask her for suggestions.
4. After you have carried out your campaign, write a small report on the difficulties you faced, the
response to your campaign, etc. Your teacher can help you with this. You may want to send it to the local
newspaper.
Activity 5: If your village could speak...
Imagine that your village had a voice and the ability to speak. What would it complain about ?
Write one or two paragraphs on what your village would say if it could speak. You could begin like this:
Do you know what has happened to the pond near the ................................ It is full of ....................................
(Describe what it looks like, the things that can be found in it, the smell, the colour of the water, etc.)
Only five years ago, it was....
(Describe what it looked like, what it was used for by people and animals, what grew around it, which
birds came there, etc.)
I think the pond will die, unless ....
(Write down the advice your village gives you.)
Some fun grammar activities
Activity 1: Making questions
Can you make questions for the answers given below. Some of the answers are single words, others are
full sentences. You can then compare your questions with that of one or two of your friends. You may
have different questions, which is perfectly all right. There is no single 'correct' question. However, the

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answer must fit the question in a sensible way. The first one is done for you. Here are some question
words you can use: Who, what, where, why, how.
a. What is in the cup ?
milk
b. ...........................................................................................................................................................................................
That is the bell ringing.
c. ...........................................................................................................................................................................................
my mother
d. ...........................................................................................................................................................................................
I am tired.
e. ...........................................................................................................................................................................................
at 1.30 yesterday afternoon
f. ...........................................................................................................................................................................................
It is red.
g. ...........................................................................................................................................................................................
by train
h. ...........................................................................................................................................................................................
in Odisha
You can make more answers like these and ask your friends to make up the questions.

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Activity 2: Adding more information to sentences.
Here is a boring sentence. It gives you very little information.
-The boy walked.
But you can add more details to the sentence by answering the questions given below.
(What size was the boy ?)
-The small boy walked.
(Where did he walk ?)
-The small boy walked along the road.
(How did he walk ?)
-The small boy walked angrily along the road.
(What was the road like ?)
-The small boy walked angrily along the dusty road.
Here are some more sentences you can add words to make them more interesting.
1. The bird flew.
......................................................................................................................................................................................................
2. The duck swam.
......................................................................................................................................................................................................

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3. The girl shouted.
......................................................................................................................................................................................................
4. The children were playing.
......................................................................................................................................................................................................
5. The mango fell.
......................................................................................................................................................................................................
Now that you have made some interesting sentences can you combine them in any way you want and
create a small story ?
Activity 3:
Here are some unfinished sentences. Finish them in any way you want.
1. I am hungry because...
2. Last night the lights went off at 8 o'clock, so ...
3. Even though it was raining hard, the little girl did not get wet because...
4. I went to my friend's house but ...
5. I finished my homework in one hour and ...
Can you make some unfinished sentences like these and ask your friends to complete them. You can have
fun comparing the sentences because each of your friends will have a different way of completing a
sentence..