The meaning of co-curricular activities revolves around its different features and characteristics. For the overall development of a child, the curriculum is not only a single criterion.

The holistic growth as well as to develop the various facets of personality development of children; classroom teaching should be supplemented with co-curricular activities.

These out of class activities affect all domains of life such as cognitive (intellectual), emotional, social, moral, cultural, and aesthetic. Co-curricular activities meaning are more focused upon cognitive aspects thereby help in intellectual development. 

Competitiveness, excellence, quality achievements, creativeness, and enthusiasm are few of the ethics of extra-curricular activities and also strengthen the meaning of co-curricular activities in school.

Non-academic activity in the form of co-curricular one provides support to students to venture into professional fields like fashion, music, painting, art, acting, photography, printing, and many more.

That’s why students need co-curricular activities, which helps in enhancing many skill developments. The importance of co-curricular activities has increased manifold in modern life. However, co-curricular meaning varies to a little bit as per place, time, and space.

The extracurricular activities definitions by leading modern educational thinkers and others are:

“Activities sponsored or recognized by a school or college which are not part of the academic curriculum but are acknowledged to be an essential part of the life of an educational institution. Co-curricular activities include sports, school bands, student newspapers, etc. They may also be classed as ‘Extracurricular’ i.e. activities carried on outside the regular course of study; activities outside the usual duties of a job, as extra class activities”- according to The International Dictionary of Education (1977).

“Co-curricular activities were mainly organized after school hours and so were the extracurricular but they are not an integral part of the activities of the school as its curricular work”- according to Aggarwal (2000).

“Co-curricular activities may be defined as the activities undertaken to strengthen the classroom learning as well as other activities both inside and outside the classroom to develop the personality of the child”– according to Bhatia (1996).

“Various social and other types of activities like literary, dramatic, social services, etc. which attracted the attention of the child were considered as extracurricular activities. Extracurricular activities have been renamed by educationists as co-curricular, which implies that all these activities are a part of the school curriculum”.- according to Mittal (1999).

Benefits of co-curricular activities

Co-curricular activities are vital because even though they are not a part of the core curriculum, they play a very crucial role in giving the young boys and girls the ability to shape up their lives. The school activities have to be designed purposefully to give an apt mix of student’s participation in academics and also to create a chance for all-round development. The importance of co-curricular activities cannot be ignored.

To understand the importance of co-curricular activities, let us see how these activities benefit students:

Enhances overall personality

Co-curricular activities in school help to enhance the overall personality of the students. These prepare them to take challenges heads up and enable them to think critically. Experiences and skills acquired through these co-curricular activities make students proactive and prepared for their future endeavors. Therefore, the importance of co-curricular activities cannot be denied in overall personality development.

Strengthen Self Confidence

The goal of co-curricular activities is to give better fitness to students and inculcate a sense of sportsmanship, competitive spirit, leadership, meticulousness, cooperation and team spirit. Thus, many institutions are appreciating the importance of co-curricular activities and integrating a number of co-curricular activities in their syllabus and making it mandatory for the students to choose their interest in co-curricular activities from a list of options. The hidden motive behind all this is to develop self-confidence and trust in others.

Develop Specialized Skills

Co-curricular activities in school help hone the talents of young minds and give them an opportunity to develop their specialized skills. Competitions that are organized can create a competitive environment and help them work towards continuous improvement in their skills.

Therefore, a number of schools are now understanding the importance of co-curricular activities right from the early stages of school so that students can benefit in the future as well.

Improve Academic Performance

Studies have shown that students pursuing their hobbies achieved better results in their studies. Their academic performance goes way up as they learn to balance their co-curricular activities with their academic pursuits. They also better understand how to manage their time efficiently and also increase their interest in the school. It is essential to understand the importance of co-curricular activities in improving academic performance.

Greater Opportunities

In this competitive era, records of participation in co-curricular activities can act as game changers during admissions into various courses. Students pursuing any co-curricular activities of their choice are given preference over those who are not involved in any such activities. Therefore, the importance of co-curricular activities is immense in their future pursuits.

Exposure to New Activities

Students are introduced to a whole new horizon of activities that give them better insights and let them choose what they enjoy and what they wish to learn. It broadens new horizons for them. These activities stimulate playing, painting, acting, dancing, singing, speaking, and many other skills in students. Thus, co-curricular activities broaden the scope of students in learning and exploring new activities. Thus, the importance of co-curricular activities is a lot in this aspect.

Builds Sense of Responsibilities

When students in their early life are given some responsibility or a task to handle like an application of first aid or managing the class painting board, etc. their efficiency to handle such situations becomes much better. This fosters a sense of responsibility and accountability. 

Enhance Physical and Mental Health

Co-curricular activities require students to stay active at school by participating. As students have no option to skip these activities such as athletics, gymnastics, yoga, indoor games, and meditation, etc. because they are part of their curriculum. This makes the importance of co-curricular activities very high. 

Co-curricular activities are helpful for students as they enhance physical fitness as well as mental health of a student and also help in relieving students from academic stress.

Role and Importance of Co-Curricular Activities at School

Schools include Co-Curricular activities with academic curriculum so that students develop skills beyond knowledge of subjects. Co-Curricular activities also help improve teaching techniques at school. Know here importance of Co-curricular activities at school.

Every activity in school life plays a significant role in development of students. Co-curricular activities are an essential part of school life and helps in enhancing learning process of students at school. Co-Curricular activities are compulsory activities which is important for every student to participate. Co-curricular are designed and balanced with academic curriculum so that every student gets to learn beyond subjects.

Co-curricular activities are meant to bring social skills, intellectual skills, moral values, personality progress and character appeal in students. It includes athletics, cultural events, Library activities, science lab activities, classroom activities, creative arts and meditation etc.

Role and Importance of Co-Curricular Activities at School –

• Proper Education – Since, co-curricular activities are merged with academics therefore, it ensures that students get to learn effectively. Science or Computer Lab practical, experiments and projects are part of co-curricular activities.

• Cultural Values – Students get to learn by cultural events including national events and traditional events from different faiths including Gandhi Jayanti, Indepedence Day, Republic Day, as well as Diwali, Eid, Baisaki, Onam, Raksha Bandhan, and many other cultural events. Students get to learn about these events through books as well as co-curricular activities based on different cultures organised by Schools.

• Personality Development – Students perform co-curricular activities in schools, which help them sharpen their communication skills, expression skills, public speaking, participation and sense of belonging through different activities like debates, recitation. Art and craft, creative art competitions, classroom activities like reading, group discussions etc.

Why extracurricular is important with academics?

• Physical and Mental Health – Co-curricular activities require students to stay active at school by participation since, students have no option to skip these activities as it’s a part of their curriculum. Students have to be a part of co-curricular activities like athletics, gymnastics, yoga, indoor games, and meditation etc. These activities are beneficial for students’ physical fitness as well as mental health and they are relieved from academic stress.

• Learning Experience – Co-curricular activities are good for improving students learning experience at school which improves their attendance at school and increases participation rate by students in co-curricular activities. Of course, students get a really good excuse for a break from academics.

• Team Leadership Skills – Co-curricular activities at school are designed in groups so that students can participate along with their classmates. This helps students develop leadership skills, team integrity and coordination skills.

How to find goals and focus on achieving them?

• Moral Values – The students through co-curricular activities learn essential ethical values about different cultures, religions, events of national and international importance as well as discipline and school life ethics. They learn to understand different religions, values, social ethics, patience, empathy, motivational skills, compatibility and contentment.

Do you know?

Assembly Prayer is also a part of co-curricular education as it teaches students discipline, moral values and meditation.

What is the role of co-curricular activities in a student’s life?

Co-curriculum activities are included in the list of school activities to impart a life-like experience to students. These activities enhance the learning process and help students perform better in academics or other scholastic activities. Every kid is unique and requires time to understand his or her key skills and areas of strength. Being a part of something bigger makes them feel more important and brings out inner self-confidence.  

1.Sense of belonging

Even the youngest kids in the school pick their friends. Interacting with a bunch of other kids who share similar interests helps them in the process of making new friends. This also means that kids who do not take part in co-curricular activities have very few to no friends at all. Just like we have a social life in our workplace, kids have their group of friends in school.

2.Empathy

Meaningful friendships are based on mutual trust, respect, and understanding. Kids might not understand the importance of their actions which can cause distress to their friends and educators. Participating in team sports, games, or other engagements helps kids realize how important it is to look out for mutual goals and achievements.

3.Adjustment

Kids can sometimes behave in an inexplicable selfish and rude manner. This is a basic instinct as they are trying to get the best for themselves. School resources that are used in CCAs on the other hand are meant for everyone. Thus children need to learn how to share a Frisbee or a Carr om board for instance.

4.Peer to peer interaction

Most scholastic activities require students to perform tasks on notebooks, computers, or boards. This minimizes the opportunity for essential student exchange in terms of ideas. Modern-day school curriculum have achieved great feats in terms of student interactions. However, these measures are not put in place to substitute healthy interactions during a football match or a debating event.

5.Concentration

Many kids have a shorter span of focus and concentration. Parents tend to put a lot of pressure on such kids to complete their homework on time. Academic performance can also suffer due to such constraints. Co-curricular activities like Chess help kids focus better on their studies. It also develops mental abilities and problem-solving capabilities.

6.Creativity

Modern-day career landscape looks very different compared to industrial times. Most organizations today are looking for professionals with Out of the box thinking skills. Yet these skills are not developed overnight. Artistic CCA activities like painting, sketching, and pottery can help bring out the best in kids.

7.Feel Involved

Kids spend over a decade in schools, this might feel like a long time. A tunnel with no light for students who feel omitted or left out in their schools. If you feel your kid is lethargic and non-enthusiastic towards school activities, you need to consult school educators for your kid to narrow down co-curricular activities. This will help kids realize their hobbies and passion. School can be made easy with CCA activities.

8.Reasoning 

Debating or group discussion events help kids question their own opinions and elucidate them with proper reasons. This way kids realize and understand different viewpoints and perspectives.

9.Develops Patience

Children can be very restless at times and this might create problems during examination. Kids tend to overlook important details associated with questions. Comprehension can also be cumbersome for some kids. Mental Math or Math Puzzles help kids comprehend better. In the process of light hearted learning kids tend to develop patience and interest. 

Schools can be your kid’s best friend if you let them be themselves and discover all the fun things they can do at school. Not only will your kid be more enthusiastic, but they will also focus more on their responsibilities like homework and studies. Regular participation or attendance will make your child more groomed and well behaved. 

Importance of co-curricular activities

“The Extracurricular activity in which I was most engaged -debating-helped shape my interest in public policy”, enunciated by Joseph Stiglitz, American Economist, and Policymaker. Let us go through the following points to understand the importance of co-curricular activities.

1.Improves Communication Skills

Communication skills are extremely important in today’s competitive world. Moreover, kids need time to understand how to express themselves, active participation in the debate or extempore speech can help them relinquish their barriers.

2.Helps to deal with Anxiety

Anxiety and stress buildups are common among adults, many a time these problems arise due to poor time management skills. Very few or no supplementary time management courses are available to build up this crucial life skill.

3.Develops Methodical Time- Management Skills

One needs to learn time allocation and management in their school life itself. Balancing scholastic activities with co-curriculum activities will help your kid understand the important principles of work-life balance.

4.Inculcates Moral Values and Decision-making ability

Our sense of justice and moral values stem from early childhood. Even though various factors like family background and individual traits play a key role, participation in co-curricular activities helps kids gather their thoughts.

5.Teaches Self-motivation

When a kid struggles to learn a new skill in early childhood, he or she experiences failure and feels rejected at times. However, they keep trying and learn to motivate themselves. Identification and rectification may sound complex for kids in junior grades but a few kids astonishingly pick up their grades after performing poorly in an examination. Such situations are stressful for kids and parents alike. Teaching methods play an important role and so does self-motivation and realization.

6.Promotes Discipline in Behavior 

Discipline and punctuality are an indispensable part of professional life. Unfortunately, these skills become extremely difficult to impart in the latter years of life. Thus our schooling systems have been devised to inculcate discipline in students. Morning assembly is a very important component of discipline training in schools and falls under the category of CCA (Co-curricular activity).

7.Creates a sense of Responsibility 

We have all come across the titles of Prefect, School Captain, House Captain, Sports Captain Class Monitor, Football Captain or Cricket Captain so on, and so forth. These are nothing but positions of responsibility offered at early childhood days to develop leadership qualities. Kids participating or engaging in such roles not only evolve leadership skills but also learn to be accountable for their actions.

8.Analytical Ability

Participating in the Mathematics Club or Mathematics exhibition are engaging recreational activities for kids. These activities include games and mathematical modelling alike which can be fun and challenging at the same time. These activities help children analyze situations on their own.

Many parents restrict their kids and keep them from participating in co-curricular activities organized by their schools. This impacts the social life of a student and hampers their overall well-being. Kids refrained from CCAs may perform well in their schools but the impact starts reflecting in personality as well as performance during Graduation years. Parents need to focus on Scholastic as well as co-scholastic activities to help develop hobbies in children. These hobbies help kids navigate through the muddy waters of Adulthood.

List of some co-curricular activities 

Let’s look at a few co-curricular activities to have a better understanding of all the activities which are available for your kids. While picking a school for your kid, you might as well have a look at all the co-curricular facilities the school has to offer. The list is inexhaustible as schools and education boards are constantly updating the available activities to provide the most likely experience to kids.

The list of Indoor Co-curricular activities is as follows:

• Music 
• Dance
• Drama
• Drawing and painting
• Abacus
• Mental Mathematics or Vedic Mathematics
• Cooking 
• Weaving
• Clay modeling
• Debating
• Mathematics Club 
• Story Telling
• Tailoring
• Rangoli
• Cardboard work
• Youth Parliament
• Mathematics Exhibition
• Model United Nation
• Student self-government
• Art and craft

The list of Outdoor Co-curricular activities is as follows:

• Horse Riding
• Yoga
• Athletics
• Martial Arts or Self defense
• Bicycling
• Gardening
• Cricket
• Tennis
• Mass parade
• Mass drill
• Swimming
• Football
• Basketball
• Volleyball
• Educational Excursion 
• Community Lunch
• Morning assembly
• Excursions
• Community service or volunteering activities

Co-curricular activities add balance to student life and help to facilitate Physical, Emotional, and Cognitive development in kids. Behavioral or concentration problems are common among kids. Allow them to participate in school activities and they will learn social behavior. Stress is really bad for kids and hampers their overall development. Various activities conducted by schools will help you in parenting your child better.

Conclusions

Therefore, as students should be given more and more opportunities to explore their interests and abilities, the importance of co-curricular activities cannot be denied. In order to instill the ‘all-rounder’ factor in students, co-curricular activities in school are being integrated in the academic curriculum in schools across several countries in the world. The importance of co-curricular activities in the integrative school curriculum is being appreciated.

The rewards of co-curricular activities in schools have been researched pretty well and it is now ascertained that students who participate in these activities show better academic results, stronger relationships in schools and are more likely to lead a healthy and active lifestyle.

Moreover, students also feel a sense of belonging to the school and have higher self-esteem by participating in structured activities like music, dance, performing arts, etc. In addition to this, students become more motivated to perform better in their academics. This makes the students feel happier, healthier and involved. This establishes the importance of co-curricular activities.

Co-curricular Activities in Science

1.Science Club Project Ideas

Demonstrations of experiments and talks by visiting scientists:

The club could lease with scientists from NECSA and other nearby scientific institutions who could

visit the schools to speak to learners about exciting topics and show them some “science in action”.

This could also be an opportunity for learners to ask about careers in science.

Brainstorming sessions/forum discussions for eager young scientists:

The club could organise for its members (and other interested learners) to meet for talk sessions

where current scientific topics could be discussed. This session could be used to talk about ideas

that might help solve some of the world’s many problems. With a little more initiative, real

scientists and university students could be invited to sit in at these sessions.

Bridge building competitions:

Such competitions are relatively simple to organise and yet extremely fun, educational and

enjoyable. For example, give participants 4 sheets of A4 paper and ask them to build a bridge across

two desks. Then test each bridge by hanging a bottle from it and slowly filling it with water. The

bridge that can hold the most water wins. As you can imagine, bridges are not the only things one

can build. The competition could deal with wheels; catapults; towers; steam cars – just about

anything. To make it more interesting, invite a professional engineer to test the bridges and to

explain why some designs work better than others.

Inter-school project exhibitions or science fairs:

The most exciting part of such a club is the opportunity to meet people from other schools. If

neighbouring schools were encouraged to form similar clubs, then these clubs could communicate

with each other and form some joint organisation with representatives from each school. This larger

group could then organise much bigger projects such as regional science expo’s and other

interesting inter-school events. 

Problem-solving challenge:

This is an easy-to-organise event that would be fun as well as intellectually challenging. The club

could find interesting mathematics or science problems that lie within the capability of the targeted

learners and offer small prizes to those who can solve them. Depending on the level of difficulty,

there could also be prizes for group entries.

Mini research projects:

Many learners may exhibit great interest in a certain aspect of science but lack the motivation to

pursue it. By providing some incentive for them (e.g. obtaining partners from industry who may

also be interested in a certain topic) the club will facilitate and encourage these learners to research

topics that they find interesting.

Tours/excursions to scientific institutions such as NECSA:

Most scientific institutions such as NECSA would welcome the opportunity to take learners for a

tour of their facilities, especially if they were approached by a structured organisation such as a

science club. In this way learners can have the opportunity to visit and see for themselves what goes

on in the scientific world. The science club could also arrange for tours to universities where

learners can obtain an idea of what career they would like to pursue.

Lending Libraries” for sharing of laboratory equipment and texts:

Many of our schools have poor scientific facilities such as laboratory equipment and texts. The

science clubs from different schools could communicate with one another and establish some sort of

lending programme whereby all schools involved would benefit. Such projects may even inspire

outside organizations to sponsor more equipment to such a group of schools.

Student exchange programmes:

Depending on how far and wide this idea spreads, science clubs could organise that certain students

visit other schools from different communities via exchange programmes. In this way they can

bring back ideas and information from other schools and thus benefit from other learners’

experiences. This helps not only build the experience of the learner but also helps bring the people

of the country closer together.

Buddy scheme:

Scientist/engineers in industry could offer to mentor/buddy learners. Ideally the learner would be

such that he/she is keen on pursuing the same or similar path that buddy has taken. This allows for

closer communication with scientists, dealing with more individual focus. One scientist/engineer

could be a buddy to many proteges.

Extra Tuition:

Collaboration between the participating schools would allow for sharing of teaching methods/ideas.

This could possibly be extended to extra tuitions with the best practices being transferred among

schools.

Peace Garden:

Start a peace garden where you would grow food for children at school or the local community.

This project would incorporate numerous other mini-projects such as: recycling, monitoring rainfall

and weather patterns, experimenting with different seeds, irrigation systems, etc.

Transnational learning:

Turn as many aspects of syllabus into something practical, for example:

– look at wiring diagram of school to find parallel/series circuits and find ways to optimise

this.

– look at possibilities of hydro-electric schemes

– build steam cars

– lend support to peace garden by testing alkalinity in soil or pollution levels in water

– build a web-site for the school

Basically finding ways to relate the things we learn in the classroom to real-life situation

 2.Science Fairs: Why and How?

Why do a school site Science Fair?

Science Fair is an opportunity for students, individually or as members of a team, to actually apply the skills they have learned in their study of science. For students who have not done any science, the science fair project will be difficult. But if your class and your school has made an effort to give students lots of experience solving problems, a science fair is a real chance for the kids to show what they’ve learned. It is also a chance to show the students and the school community how important and useful science is. Community partners, such as businesses that have made donations, can be invited as well to see the students’ work.

Deadlines and Timelines

Many teachers find more success if they break the science fair project down into manageable chunks for students, and have the different parts due on different days. Give students a timeline with due dates for their topic question, experimental design, display design, results, draft reports and final display. The book, The Complete Science Fair Handbook, by Fredericks and Asimov, (1990, Good Year Books) has two detailed timelines, as well as a great deal of practical advice for teachers and students. You may want to give students a chance to work on portions of the project in class, and peer review can be a valuable way for students to get ideas for improving their projects. This also gives you, the teacher, a chance to make it clear what your expectations are for their product.

Possible Problems

1. The Great Volcano: You have to decide what kind of projects you wish to see. If students are given little guidance, the majority of projects you will get will fall into two categories: the vinegar and baking soda volcano, and the Tide detergent test. If this is ok with you, fine. I find it pretty dull, and I don’t think students learn much from imitating TV commercials. The time to deal with this is at the beginning. Make it clear to your students that you want them to tackle a question that is new to them, not the same thing they did last year. Have them turn in their project topics ahead of time, and give them feedback if the projects look unacceptable. (Scientist could help with this step.)

2. The Rich get Richer: Some students have parents who are scientists or engineers. Other students are living in foster homes or shelters. How do we cope with the different resources these students bring to a project such as this? How does an impoverished student with no computer compete when it is time to create an attractive display? First of all, try to make it clear that this is a student project. Parents can be used as a resource, but they should not do the work (build the equipment, write the report, or build the display. Second, we teachers should provide space in our class schedule for some of the critical steps in the process. There should be class time for brainstorming and critiquing project ideas, practice collecting and graphing data, and writing conclusions. The students should be presented with models of good science projects, so they know what you are looking for.

Must it be judged?

Some schools bring scientists or science educators in to judge the student entries, but this is completely optional. You can give participation certificates just as well. However, your site is limited in the number of projects you can send to the District Science Fair, so you need to figure out a way to decide who goes on.

Must projects follow the “Scientific Method”?

Many teachers use a traditional scientific method approach. It should be made clear to students that working scientists do not always follow such a rigid sequence of steps. On the other hand, for a project of this type, the students should clearly state their question, hypothesis, materials and procedure, present their results and a conclusion summarizing their findings. See the Web Resources below for a variety of models you might wish to use.

How does this relate to an Inquiry approach?

For me, this is the big question. I want my students to develop their curiosity, and their skill at developing and answering their own questions. If the science fair won’t serve that goal, I do not have time for it! I see the science fair project as a chance for students to work more independently on the same kinds of investigations we have been doing in class. We have been learning to pose questions, to collect data, and to write conclusions that explain our results. I see the science fair as a chance for them to apply these skills. I hope we can add a more student-centered component to the District Science Fair, featuring students sharing their results with each other, rather than just creating a display as an end product.

 3.Science Exhibitions

The purpose of Science exhibitions is to develop scientific attitude in the young generation of

our country to make them realize the interdependence of science, technology and society and

the responsibility of the scientists of tomorrow. These objectives may be achieved by

presenting the exhibits as an exciting experience of creativity of children, innovations through

improvisations of science kits, and various devices and models for providing solutions to many

present and future socio‐economic problems particularly those confronted in the rural areas,

using available materials and local resources.

The exhibitions will help children and teachers to learn from each other experiences and

motivate them to design and develop something new and novel. It will also provide a medium

for popularizing science and increasing awareness among the public towards it. The objectives

of organizing science exhibitions may briefly be put as follows:

 stimulating interest in science and technology and inculcating scientific spirit in younger

generations;

 exploring and encouraging scientific and technological talent among children;  

 inculcating in them a sense of pride in their talent;  

 providing exploratory experiences, encouraging creative thinking and promoting

creative thinking and promoting psycho-motor and manipulative skills among children

through self devised exhibits or models or simple apparatus;

 encourage problem solving approach and developing the appropriate technologies,

especially for rural areas and integrating scientific ideas with daily life situations;

 popularizing science among masses and creating an awareness regarding the role of

science and technology in socio‐economic and sustainable growth of the country;

 4.Field Trips and Excursions

Arrangement of educational field tours and excursions is considered now as an essential part of school programmes. By moving outdoors, the pupils get concrete information and enrich their personal experience. The mental horizon of pupils gets widened.

Again, during the course of trip all arrangements of travelling, boarding and lodging are made by pupils. This provides a practical training to develop the qualities of initiative, resourcefulness and self-confidence.

The educational trips can be of varied interests. Visits to museums, forts, temples, caves, forests, mountains, lakes, valleys, canals and corn fields help in supplementing the teaching of social studies history, geography etc. Excursion to Red Fort, Agra Fort, Taj Mahal, Elora and Ajanta bring reality, clarity and vividness to the “dead matter” of history. Visits to industrial establishments, factories, laboratories etc. are very helpful to the students taking up science.

As per organization of Field Trips and Excursions it is very necessary that it should be properly planned to achieve the maximum benefit from excursion. It must be wisely be conceived, ably conducted and intelligently evaluated.

The teacher in-charge should posses’ complete information regarding the place of visit. He must impart all the valuable knowledge to the pupils. The railway reservation of accommodation for entire route of movement and lodging at each place of stay should be thoroughly planned before-hand. All haste should be avoided. The entire work must be divided among the workers and group-leaders, proper budgeting should be done and economy mast be observed.

Recreational activities like singing, storytelling, photography should be organized side by side. Lastly, care must be taken for maintenance of perfect discipline in the entire course of excursion.

The field trip is a type of laboratory experience which has many possibilities for providing activities appropriate to a number of important goals. Its use has been minimized by most teachers even though they may admit that it has some valuable possibilities. Like any other procedure in science teaching, it can be most functional only when it is carefully planned. There are a number of details concerned with planning if a trip is to be efficiently and effectively conducted. 

Usually it is some of these details that cause teachers to forego the trip as a school activity.Sometimes such terms as school excursion, school journey, or laboratory trip have been used instead of field trip. Often the latter term has been applied particularly to biology or to nature-study trips. However, there seems little choice between various names for this activity. The term field trip is used here to mean any activity involving one or more students or a class away from the school classroom and grounds pri

marily planned in connection with classwork. Because field trips do have the possibilities of being so valuable and interesting, it seems worth- while to indicate in detail some ways in which they may be planned most successfully. 

Purposes of Field Trips

Perhaps it is unnecessary to suggest that a field trip should not be taken simply because it is customary to have a field trip. As with all experiences, field trips should be used when this type of activity seems to be the most appropriate to achieve certain objectives. It is important, therefore, that both teachers and students are clear as to the purpose of a particular field trip.There are, of course, many purposes or objectives toward which field trips may contribute. Amongst these may be mentioned the following:

 To stimulate interest and motivate students

 To collect material

 To gain firsthand observations and contacts

 To obtain an overview or introduction to a unit of work

Qualities of a good Science Textbook

Text books are the most widely used of all instructional materials. Now a day’s text book has become a course of study. A set of unit plans and a learning guide as well. A text book should really design for the pupils rather than the teacher. Text book should stimulate reflective thinking and cultivate in students the scientific attitude.

In the teaching-learning process, the text-book occupies an important place. There is a saying “As is the text-book, so is the teaching and learning”. A good text-book can even replace class-room teaching. The science text-book should aim at aiding the pupils in the development of their personalities, in developing open mindedness, developing appreciation and understanding of nature and not merely stuffing their minds with facts.

Qualities of a good science Text book

Thurber and Collette suggested six criteria for choosing a good textbook. They are

1. Content
2. Organization
3. Literary style vocabulary
4. Illustrations
5. Teaching aids
6. Mechanical make up and appearance
7. Authorship

I. Content

The content of text books for any one subject matter field is remarkable uniform about 85 percent of the content being common to all of them

1. The content should be appropriate for the age level and experience backgrounds of the pupils
2. The concept should not be too complex for the maturity of the pupils
3. The content should be consistent with the pupil’s needs and interests
4. The statements must be accurate

II Organization

1. The subject matter should cover the whole syllabus
2. Subject matter should be developed in psychological sequence
3. The text book has to be organized into units which are based on student interests and probability of use
4. Inductive approach is to be used whenever possible in introducing new topic
5. At the end of each units there should be assignments informing to the following
6. Application to life situations
7. Self assessment test
8. Suggestions for further reading
9. Numerical questions if necessary
10. Assessment for practicing skills
11. The text book should be written in simple unambiguous scientific language. Prefer simple and compound sentence to complex sentences
12. It should contain a glossary of technical terms used in the books
13. It should suggest some good methods of learning’s
14. Historical development of science should be attempted
15. Adequate provision should be made to correlate science with other subject and crafts.
16. It is better if the text book contains examples from the local environment
17. There should be a detailed table of contents and index text books
18. Controversial topics should be treated impartially
19. The social significance of science should be stressed
20. Headings and sub- headings should be in bold type
21. Important principles should be set in italics
22. Each text books should be accompanied by a laboratory manual and pupil’s work book
23. It must be supplemented by a teacher’s hand book

Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world. Nelson Mandela

III. Literary style and Vocabulary of text book

Literary style has much to do with the readability of the book. Although style is difficult to judge.

1. Length of sentences
2. Directness of sentences
3. Number of ideas per seconds
4. Use of lead sentence or paragraphs
5. Presence or absence of irrelevant thoughtscontinuity of thought

While evaluating a text book the teacher must decide whether or not the vocabulary is excessive or in appropriate text book should be easy to read

IV Illustrations

• The quality and the quantity of the illustrations should be considered.
• Photographs should be clearly reproduced
• Diagrams should be carefully made attractive
• Color in the illustrations add to eye appeal and when properly used has considerable teaching value
• The recently introduced transparencies made on plastic sheets are excellent teaching aids but

V.Teaching aids