Yogesh Pathak

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Students at this age are to be encouraged to look at events, concepts, and systems in an objective or unbiased manner. They are also capable of dealing with more complexity and absorb more information than earlier grades. They have a meaningful ability to observe, measure and analyze.

 

A number of complex geographical, climate, historical and scientific concepts can be introduced at this stage to appreciate individual parts of the Earth system and human civilizations. Nature educators can play a vital role in integrating these concepts.

 

Key concepts in the 6th grade strand of the Web of Ecological Concepts include the following.  

• Earth’s orbital motion around the Sun, Earth’s inclined axis. The various impacts of these e.g. the annual cycle, seasons.

• Local weather and climate. Various elements of weather like temperature, air pressure, wind, moisture, precipitation.

• National climate and seasons

• Understanding satellite weather images and animation to understand weather forecasts and potential weather anomalies

• Atmosphere

  • Layers

  • Gaseous composition - current

  • Gaseous composition – historical, through earlier periods of no life and life

  • Oxygen, Nitrogen, Carbon Dioxide and Methane: Their natural balance and imbalance due to human activity

  • Pollution and greenhouse gas emissions

  • The ozone layer, related crisis, and human actions to recover from it.

• How local species of plants and animals respond to daily changes in weather and seasonal changes in climate. Ecosystem health and climate.

• Changes in local water bodies and flows based on seasonal precipitation and dryness/heat. Ecosystem health and water flows.

• Temperature zones around the earth and relating them to biogeographical zones/biomes on land. Ecosystem health and temperature.

• Formation of ocean currents due to global temperature zones and relating it to marine life

• Mean annual temperatures around the globe. Indications of global warming

• Ocean ecosystems (coastal, surface and near-surface): plants and animals, food chains

• Changes in ocean ecosystem along increasing depth: plants and animals species, food chains

• All the above concepts should be supported by a diverse set of maps

• Mangrove ecosystem

• Energy:

  • Source of energy: Classify these into “distributed source” and “concentrated source” (i.e. high entropy and low entropy), renewable and non-renewable, and among the renewable sources, discuss the process/speed/limitations of renewal.

  • Sun as the source of all energy

  • Conversion of energy and associated waste/efficiency

  • Discuss the technology-energy interrelationship

  • How humans appropriate natural energy sources for their own benefit, and the side effects of it (e.g. land use change and pollution).

  • Brief overview of energy production at national level – supply of coal/oil/gas, refineries, hydroelectric plants, nuclear, wind, solar, electric grid, etc.

  • Discuss energy infrastructure and it’s own material and energy footprint

• Matter:

  • Types of matter extracted by humans from nature: minerals, crude oil, wood, natural materials.

  • Chemicals

  • Industrial processes to convert matter into useful ‘man made substances’ and associated waste & pollution. Impact on ecosystem health (e.g. rivers)

  • Pollution and waste prior to (e.g. packaging), during use (e.g. diesel generators), and after use

  • Opportunities and challenges in recycling materials

• Soil and Water as natural resources that are shared by other species, natural systems, and man. Their extraction by man vs. their natural cycles of replenishment.

  • Soil composition

  • Soil formation

  • Soil erosion due to natural and human causes and impact on ecosystem health

• Agriculture & food in depth

  • History of agriculture (local and global)

  • Prevailing systems (local and national), their pros and cons

  • Agriculture through the economic lens: Various crops in the state and country, their distribution chains, cash vs. non-cash crops, food and non-food crops.

  • Energy, water, and material needs of agriculture e.g. electricity, irrigation, fertilizers

  • Agriculture’s impact on land use i.e. appropriating land from nature

  • Modern agriculture’s impact on soil

  • Modern agriculture’s impact on water flows and ecosystems like rivers

  • Sustainable agriculture

  • Human nutrition and balanced diet including minerals and vitamins

  • Diversity (or lack of it) in our food

  • Processed and ultra-processed foods, junk foods

  • Agriculture-Biodiversity-Food connection

• Revisiting human occupations: A more systematic study

  • An inventory of occupations in urban and rural areas

  • Technologies used, skills required, knowledge base required for them

  • Relationship with natural resources, land use, ecosystems

  • The current model of primary-secondary-tertiary occupation and the unsustainability of the current model due to natural resource exploitation and land use change.

  • Briefly touch upon wage/economic inequality in different occupations.

  • Sustainability-based perspective on human occupations: Introduction

• Integration: Civilizations

  • Key features of a civilization

  • Example of rise and decline of past civilizations

  • Dependence of civilizations on ecosystem health and balance

  • Climate, water, and soil challenges to a civilization

  • Examples: Decline of past civilizations when seen from the environmental and natural resource lens.

  • A discussion on the current civilization based on the above.

• Biodiversity, classification of living things, and documentation of natural observations: Introduced more formally.

• In-depth field work in observing nature, documenting and classifying species, and analyzing and documenting man’s use of natural resources. Examples (not exhaustive):

  • Observing growth, food absorption, respiration, and excretion in plants, mammals (e.g. humans, dogs, cats, cows), birds, and frogs

  • Observing reproduction & childbirth: Birds and mammals

  • Experiments related to parts of a plant

  • Classification of plants and animals by observing features

• A few body systems in man, mammals, and birds (e.g. skin, skeletal)

 

 

Other concepts in geography, history, and science that are appropriate at this level, should also be covered in parallel. Below are some examples, but this is not an exhaustive list.

• The Milky Way, Stars, Solar System, and Planets

• Earth System: Graticule, longitude, latitude, angular distance.

• Earth’s rotation and it’s various impacts e.g. Earth’s shape, the Day-Night cycle, formation of winds and ocean currents. Further impacts of these on living beings – plants and animals.

• Rock types: Focus on local and regional with some introduction to national/global rock types

• Study of materials e.g. properties of substances, metals and non-metals, substances in daily use of man, natural vs. man-made substances used by man

• Multiple civilizations, their place in history, and appreciating processes and tools for historical research, including archaeological evidence.