{"id":17339,"date":"2020-01-19T10:15:19","date_gmt":"2020-01-19T04:30:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dorjegurung.com\/blog\/?p=17339"},"modified":"2026-03-13T22:01:51","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T22:01:51","slug":"lesson-on-natural-resources","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/blog\/2020\/01\/lesson-on-natural-resources\/","title":{"rendered":"Teacher Education: Lesson on Natural Resources Using Magazine Cutouts"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Last September, I was conducting my teacher education program<\/a> at a small private school in Kathmandu. Part of it involved conducting lessons to demonstrate to the science teachers I was working with, firstly, how NOT to teach directly from the textbook (something pretty much every secondary school teacher I have observed has done), and secondly, how they CAN make science lessons interesting and engaging, even in the absence of fancy, expensive instruments and gadgets or in the absence of a science laboratory by simply making creative use<\/a> of readily available materials. One of the lessons I conducted at the school I blogged about in Teacher Education: Engaging Climate Change Lesson Using Just Five Graphs Found on The Internet<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was actually the first lesson I conducted at that school. When I did I used \u2014 as stimulus \u2014 the following cutouts from different magazines I found that morning at home. The topic was Natural Resources with 7th graders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I started the lesson by putting two or so of the cutouts on each bench. About 5 students were seated behind each bench. I then put the following words on the board.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nature, Natural, Resources, Natural Resources, Man-made.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I started my lesson by engaging with them on an exchange about what “Nature” means and if the cut out they have represents “Nature” or parts of nature etc. When I was satisfied that they were well versed in the meaning of the word, I moved on to Natural, and then to Resources etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the other things I was trying to demonstrate was the fact that the information, the facts, and whatever the students need to learn do not ALL have to come from the teacher himself\/herself all the time. I was trying to demonstrate that the students too know a lot and it helps to engage them in the classroom in the way I did throughout most of the 45-minute lesson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have a sad footnote to this otherwise fun lesson I had with the students however: the teacher for whose benefit I had conducted the lesson wasn’t there to observe it at all! (Apparently, she was held up by a parent!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But three days later, the next time I was at the school, the teacher shared how impressed she had been to discover the children had learned and remembered what I had taught them. She had quizzed them the preceding day, the first lesson they had had since my own lesson with them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Another lesson I conducted with a grade 7 group using cutouts from magazines. The topic? Natural Resources. How and what a teacher uses as a teaching tool or resource is really limited only by the teacher’s imagination, really!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":17340,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"How & what a teacher uses as a teaching tool or resource is really limited only by the teacher's imagination, really! #Nepal #ScienceEducation","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[340],"tags":[516,518,621,211,483,330,515],"class_list":["post-17339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-teacher-education","tag-bookbus-nepal","tag-satori-center-for-the-arts","tag-science-education","tag-science-teaching","tag-teacher-training-in-nepal","tag-teaching-in-nepal","tag-the-us-embassys-book-bus"],"blocksy_meta":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/magazine-cut-out-1864-featimage.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2Jbro-4vF","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17339"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17339\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29715,"href":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17339\/revisions\/29715"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dorjegurung.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}