EVS Teaching Material and Aids: Local Environment, Textbooks, Worksheets and the Teacher as Facilitator

Drafted with AI assistance and fact-checked on 28 October 2026; not yet read line by line by a human editor. Spotted a mistake? Tell us. Editorial standards & corrections

The local environment as the first resource

For EVS the best teaching aid is often outside the classroom: the trees and plants of the school campus, birds and insects, the sky and the weather, soil, a pond or tank, and the people and places of the neighbourhood. Real objects (realia) such as seeds, leaves, feathers, grains, clay, utensils and tools let children touch, smell, compare and sort. A nature corner or EVS corner where children bring and label what they find, a school garden, and a weather chart kept by the children through the year turn the surroundings into a continuing resource. Collecting must be responsible: fallen leaves and seeds, not plucked flowers or caught animals.

Other aids

Pictures, charts, photographs, models, maps and a globe, flash cards, puppets, audio and video recordings and ICT resources bring in what children cannot see directly, such as a desert, a snow-covered village or a houseboat. Low-cost and no-cost material made by the teacher and children from waste such as bottles, cartons, newspaper and bottle caps is encouraged: it is cheap and local, and it shows children that they too can make things. An aid must serve the learning goal and be handled by children, not just shown; a chart of the water cycle hung on the wall teaches far less than children making their own model of how rainwater collects.

Community resources

Parents and grandparents (on old games, food and ways of storing water), farmers, potters, weavers, carpenters, the postman, the health worker, the forest guard and the panchayat member can be invited to class or interviewed by children. Places such as the post office, bank, railway station, primary health centre, museum and a local monument make ideas concrete. Using these resources also tells children that knowledge lives in their community and that their families' work has value.

The textbook and its features

Looking Around has 24 chapters in class III, 27 in class IV and 22 in class V. It speaks directly to the child in a conversational style, uses true stories of people and places across India, poems, letters, diaries, interviews, cartoons and many pictures, and asks children to Tell, Discuss, Find out, Write, Draw and Do. Its questions are often open-ended and tied to the child's own life (What do you do at home to save water?), and each class V chapter ends with What we have learnt, questions that show how learning can be assessed and ask children to explain ideas in their own words. The books avoid definitions to be memorised and deliberately show diversity: girls playing kabaddi, a woman doctor in the Navy, children with disabilities, tribal, rural and urban lives, and families of many kinds. The textbook is a guide and one resource among many; the teacher may change examples to suit the local context, and it is not meant to be read aloud line by line or learnt by heart.

Worksheets

A worksheet is a structured sheet that guides a child's activity, observation or thinking: a table to record a survey, a picture to label, a grid for grouping animals, a space to draw what was seen on a field trip, or open questions after an experiment. Good EVS worksheets use pictures and simple language, ask children to observe, record, compare and explain rather than only fill blanks, leave room for different answers, and can be graded for children at different levels. They can be used before a lesson (to draw out prior ideas), during an activity, or after it for practice and assessment, and finished worksheets can go into the child's portfolio.

The teacher as facilitator

NCF 2005 sees the teacher not as the only source of knowledge but as a facilitator who creates situations in which children learn. In EVS this means planning activities around children's lives, asking good questions and listening to the answers, encouraging children to explore, discuss and work in groups, accepting more than one answer where the question allows, linking the classroom with the community, observing and recording each child's progress, and being a co-learner who is willing to find out alongside the children. The teacher must also be sensitive: never shaming a child's home, food or language, and questioning stereotypes when they come up.

A CTET situation

A school has no laboratory and little money for teaching aids. The right response is not to skip activities or wait for a kit, but to use the school campus, local and waste material, and members of the community. Likewise, when the textbook shows a crop or a house that children have never seen, the teacher should begin from the crops and houses of their own area and then compare.

Key facts

The first resource for EVS is the local environment: the school campus, trees, a pond, the market and the people of the neighbourhood.
Realia (real objects) such as seeds, leaves, feathers and tools let children touch, compare and sort; collect fallen leaves, not plucked flowers.
Low-cost and no-cost aids are made from waste such as bottles, cartons and newspaper by teachers and children together.
Community resources: parents, grandparents, farmers, artisans, the postman, the health worker; places such as the post office, bank, railway station and health centre.
Looking Around: 24 chapters in class III, 27 in class IV, 22 in class V; prompts Tell, Discuss, Find out, Write, Draw; class V chapters end with What we have learnt.
The EVS textbook shows diversity (girls playing kabaddi, a woman naval doctor, a girl in a wheelchair) and avoids definitions to be memorised.
The textbook is one resource among many; the teacher may adapt its examples to the local context.
A good worksheet: pictures, simple language, observe-record-compare-explain tasks, room for different answers, graded levels.
Teacher as facilitator: plans experiences, asks and listens, encourages group work, accepts more than one answer, learns alongside children, records progress.

Quick revision

Local environment is EVS's first resource; realia, nature corner, school garden, weather chart; charts, models, maps, globe, ICT; low-cost and no-cost aids from waste; community people and places; Looking Around has 24, 27 and 22 chapters, conversational, true stories, open questions, What we have learnt (class V), diversity, no rote definitions; worksheets for observing and recording, graded; teacher as facilitator and co-learner.

Practise this topic

All 8 lessons on Environmental Studies (EVS) and its Pedagogy (Paper I)