NCERT Science Books- Stressing on Sequential Growth

The driving philosophy of NCERT while drafting the NCERT Science curriculum and books has always been to provide students with education material that is ‘true to life, true to child and true to science’. The NCERT has been publishing NCERT Science text books with content that reflects this philosophy.

To make the process of conceptual understanding and learning systematic, NCERT has divided the entire NCERT Science curriculum from grade 1 to XII into various levels. These levels focus on the progressively incremental nature of the knowledge acquiring process that emphasizes a sequential building of concepts. A learning process that is sequential in nature helps students  understand the concepts easily and also leads to a better retention of the studied material as it fits into the knowledge schema that already exists with the child. This helps  students to efficiently master all important concepts particularly in the in sciences and maths.

At the first level, that is the primary level, the focus is on ‘exploration’. Here the students are encouraged to explore the world. Through the various activities and practical exercises in the NCERT Science books, the students are encouraged to gain knowledge through hands-on experience. For example in the primary classes while teaching about trees, the students are asked to collect different type of leaves and prepare a scrap book with the names of each of the leaves.

Once a student passes through the first level the next is the upper primary level. Here the stress is on learning by involving the students in group discussions with peers, performing simple experiments etc. Under the ‘Extended Learning’ activities in NCERT Science books, the students are guided to explore more information about the topics already studied. Once the required information is gathered a classroom discussion following it helps to concretizing the learning and fills the gaps. A group discussion facilitates easy exchange of information. For example, in the NCERT Science book for Class VII an activity in the Chapter ‘Nutrition in Plants’, asks students to visit a greenhouse and observe how plants are raised. They are also asked to collect additional information on the regulation of light, water and CO2 and discuss the same with the classmates.

The next level is the secondary level. Under this level the onus is on learning through advanced modules of learning in NCERT Science books. Various initiatives such as the National Talent Search Exam, National Science Exhibitions etc are also organized to assess the grasp of theoretical principles and their practical applications. For competitions like these, the entire syllabus is based on the NCERT Science curriculum.

Fourth and the last level is the higher secondary level. In this level, Science is promoted and taught as a discipline. Under this last level, Science as a composite subject is bifurcated into three to four different subjects like Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Biotechnology. Students studying NCERT Science take up their respective streams and combinations. The NCERT Science Books for these classes focuses on helping students master each subject individually so that students pursue higher studies in Science and may even take up the field of Science professionally.