The Nature Study Course With Suggestions For Teaching It Based On Notes Of Lectures To Teachers In Training

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Excerpt from The Nature Study Course: With Suggestions for Teaching It, Based on Notes of Lectures to Teachers-in-Training When the teachers began to teach the part of the new Course of Study relating to nature work, judging by the questions asked by Normal School students and numerous correspondents, many of them were confronted by difficulties over which the books available did not help them. An engagement to answer such questions, and to offer hints and suggestions on the Nature Study part of the Course has drawn forth the following pages. Direct the children how and where to collect the material, guide their observations and reasoning upon what they bring, and teach them the arts of expressing the steps and results of their investigation. This general direction seems as simple as it is comprehensive; but in its application almost as many different problems arise as there are different lessons. No one can anticipate all these problems, but solutions of many of them are herein proposed. The Nature Study teacher well knows the value of comparison. Any one using the course of study prescribed for his own province will derive much benefit from comparing it in detail and in entirety with the course adopted in another province. This little book may, therefore, prove as helpful to teachers outside of the Provinces whose regulations are quoted as to those serving within their boundaries. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

In the early twentieth century, a curriculum known as nature study flourished in major city school systems, streetcar suburbs, small towns, and even rural one-room schools. This object-based approach to learning about the natural world marked the first systematic attempt to introduce science into elementary education, and it came at a time when institutions such as zoos, botanical gardens, natural history museums, and national parks were promoting the idea that direct knowledge of nature would benefit an increasingly urban and industrial nation. The definitive history of this once pervasive nature study movement, TeachingChildren Science emphasizes the scientific, pedagogical, and social incentives that encouraged primarily women teachers to explore nature in and beyond their classrooms. Sally Gregory Kohlstedt brings to vivid life the instructors and reformers who advanced nature study through on-campus schools, summer programs, textbooks, and public speaking. Within a generation, this highly successful hands-on approach migrated beyond public schools into summer camps, afterschool activities, and the scouting movement. Although the rich diversity of nature study classes eventually lost ground to increasingly standardized curricula, Kohlstedt locates its legacy in the living plants and animals in classrooms and environmental field trips that remain central parts of science education today.