Open Science Journal of Education

2013; 1(1): 1-6

Published online November 30, 2013 (http://www.openscienceonline.com/journal/edu)

Imperative of environment in science learning

Aina, Jacob Kola, Philip, Yamma Joseph
Physics Department, College of Education (T) Lafiagi, Kwara State, Nigeria

Email address
akoja64@gmail.com (Aina, J. K.)

To cite this article

Aina, Jacob Kola, Philip, Yamma Joseph. Imperative of Environment in Science Learning. Open Science Journal of Education.
Vol. 1, No. 1, 2013, pp. 1-6.

Abstract
This paper reviewed poor performance of students in science due to inappropriate teaching method, lack of facilities,
insufficient resources, structuring of the curriculum and many more. Highlight of importance of environment;
environment aided inquiry base learning and importance of environment to improvisation of science teaching materials
were fully discussed. The paper was concluded by stressing the importance of environment to sound science learning
and offered some recommendations base on the conclusion.
Keywords
Improvisation, Environment, Inquiry, Learning, Academic Performance

science will not be better unless learners’ environment is

1. Introduction
Method of teaching and learning in science cannot be
separated from learning outcome which eventually has a
positive correlation with students’ academic performance.
Science is different from other disciplines and so its method
of teaching. If science is taught with appropriate method
students’ performance will be good also. There is the need
to make learning of science more interesting through
student-centered instructions as Kareem (2003)
investigated the effect of Audio-graphic Self Instructional
Package (ASIP) on students’ performance in Biology; he
concluded that self- instructional packages can improve the
performance of Art based biology students in senior
secondary schools.
Many studies carried out in Nigeria had shown that
students’ academic performance and enrolment in science is
not encouraging (Akanbi, 2003; Kola, 2007; Harry, 2011;
Aina, 2013). Reasons adduced for this poor performance
are many.
If there will be changes in the trend of performance;
there is the need for both the students and the teachers to
fully explore their environment. The best teaching and
learning resources in science should be learners’
environment. Science processes involve exploration of
learners’ environment. Students’ academic performance in
fully explored.
Instructional materials are very important in science
teaching and learning (Aina, 2013). In developing countries
like Nigeria, these materials are not readily available in
many schools because of its high price; therefore there is
the need for an alternative through improvisation. There are
unlimited resources available in the environment that could
be used for this improvisation.
2. Causes of Poor Performance in
Science
Adegboye (2003) believed the main factor that is
responsible for poor performance in mathematics is the fear
of mathematics. Okooboh, Afolabi and Asilika (2004)
strongly agreed that the unimpressive response to science
and technical education causes students’ poor performance
in science subjects at secondary school level.
Insufficient resources are major cause of poor
performance in science as highlighted by Ajileye (2006);
the insufficient resources include laboratories, science
equipment, and specimens to be used as teaching aids.
Ukwuoma (1990) in his investigation of factor impair
science education pointed out that over 80% of failure in
science and technology is due to the inability of students to
2 Aina, Jacob Kola and Philip, Yamma Joseph: Imperative of Environment in Science Learning
do well in practical.
Akinola (2006) believed that causes of mass failure of
students in senior secondary Chemistry Examination
include teacher’s methodology, structuring of the
curriculum, and the concentration of examination questions
on few topics and the inability of students to perform
enough practical before their examination.
Textbook is very important to students learning and that
may be the reason why Ladanu (1991) observed that most
of the textbooks used in secondary schools are written by
foreign authors. Languages used in some of the texts are
complex and ambiguous. Hence, it becomes difficult for
students to comprehend.
In the opinion of Akanbi (2003) poor performance in
Physics may be due to a number of fundamental reasons,
which could be due to shortage of science teachers in
quality and quantity, inadequate laboratory equipment and
facilities. Poor motivated teaching strategies and shortage
of suitable Physics textbooks and other factors. Bamidele
(2004) observed lack of interest in physics by students due
to preconceived idea that physics is a difficult subject has
affected the enrolment and performance of students in
physics.
Olonade (2000) study on the influence of school location,
school size, sex difference and teachers variables on
mathematics achievement of secondary school students and
Fatola (2005) on the effect of environment on academic
performance of students in mathematics both revealed that
school location, school size influences students’
performance in sciences.
Garba (2004) conducted a research on the relationship
between classroom control and students’ performance; his
findings revealed that teachers who are sufficiently
equipped with strategies that assist in classroom control
adequately will automatically enable the students have full
concentration and lead to positive academic performance of
the students.
Ojo (2001) viewed lack of qualified teachers, lack of
facilities and poor teaching method as factors to be
considered when it comes to student performance in
science. He argued that success of any science education
program depends to a large extent on the teacher.
Aiyelabegan (2003) identified attitude, approach of
students and teacher to Physics, inadequacy of practical
equipment, unconducive environment and lack of qualified
hands to handle practical works as factors affecting student
performance in Physics. Apata (2007) confirmed that
students taught by qualified and experienced teachers
performed better than students taught by unqualified and
inexperienced teachers in his study on the influence of
teachers’ academic qualification and experience on students’
performance in senior secondary school physics.
Ogunbiyi (1986) investigated that many secondary
school students are unfamiliar with more than half of
laboratory apparatus and are unable to know in what
experiment they are used.
3. The Place of Environment in
Science Teaching and Learning
A child environment is his/her surrounding where he/she
is learning. It is a natural world that may affect the child
learning activities. A child environment can therefore be
his/ her home or school; whichever one it may be it is very
important to his/her learning of science.
Family members and people in the students’ immediate
environment constitute an important social environment for
the students’ learning (Lee, 2012).
A child environment consists of both natural and human
resources that are very important to science learning.
Science learning would have been made easy if all teachers
make use of students’ environment for the teaching. Lack
of enough emphasis on the environment was observed by
Science Teachers Association of Nigeria [STAN] (2001)
that scientists who practice science ignored their
environment.
Many of the science subjects are considered to be too
difficult and abstract (Adeyemo, 2010; Aina, 2013) because
students’ environment is not fully explore. Learners are
curious in seeing what they are learning and this helps them
to retain whatever learnt for a longer period; that is why
Oloyede (2007) argued that Nigerian child should be
brought up to see science as a means of understanding their
environment.
Fakunle (2010) considered learning environment crucial
to improvisation of instructional materials supported by
Kola (2007) that environment is very rich for materials
needed for science improvisation.
Influence of environment at a particular time determines
a child’s behavior (Ozdemir and Rahimi, 2013); child
learning is not only the duty of teachers but also of parents
at home supporting this, Lee (2012) posited that parents
play a fundamental role in facilitating their children’s
inquiry and arousing their curiosity and interest in science
at home.
Home environment is rich for learning science and
parents are the first science teacher for their children. Even
right in the bedroom environment parents can use materials
there to teach science; such type of teaching might be the
best for the children because they can retain such learning
for longer period.
The world famous physicist and mathematician,
Archimedes discovered law of floatation in his bathroom;
similarly, science can be learnt everywhere in the home
today. A mother can conveniently teach her daughter heat
transfer right in the kitchen. She only needs to tell and
show the daughter the effect of living a spoon in a hot pot
of soup; that heat will be transfer from the head of the
spoon to the handle. Heat radiation can best be learnt in the
kitchen including Ultraviolet radiation through some of the
cooking appliances present in the kitchen. This type of
learning will be more permanent in a child brain and that is
the more reason Basu et al (2012) wrote that learning
environment helped to produce significant learning gains.
 Open Science Journal of Education 2013; 1(1): 1-6
4. Environment Aided Inquiry- Based
Learning
Inquiry is seeking for truth, information or knowledge by
asking question. It involves an attempt of converting
information into useful knowledge. According to
Stepnenson (2012), inquiry involves learners tackling real
world questions, issues and controversies to obtain
knowledge.
Armbruster, Patel, Johnson and Weiss (2009) have
advocated for student-centered instructional strategies, such
as active and inquiry-oriented learning into classroom.
Science teaching in most schools today is teacher -centered;
teacher dominates class discussion by giving information to
students through conventional method of talk and chalk.
This contributed to students’ poor performance in sciences
as observed by many scholars (Akanbi, 2003; Aiyelabegan,
2003; Harry, 2011; Aina, 2013).
Good teachers of science should create environments in
which they and their students work together as active
learners. Teachers can take an inquiry approach as they
guide students in acquiring and interpreting information
from community (National Academy Press, 1998). The
focus of this inquiry should be predominantly on real
phenomena, in classrooms, outdoors, or in laboratory
settings, where students are given investigations or guided
toward fashioning investigations that are demanding but
within their capabilities (National Academy Press, 1998).
The best way to learn science is by guiding students to
seek for information about science and ask questions based
on their environment; science is all about the environment.
For instance photosynthesis in biology could be learnt by
guiding students to observe leafs of various colors found
around them and provoke them to ask why the colors are
different.
Students could be guided to study pollution by
comparing colors of different types of water - rain water,
stream water, borehole water, erosion water and tap water;
it is obvious that students will ask why these waters have
different colors. This and the use of body perfume and
insecticide at home could be a good way of helping
students to discover types of pollution by themselves.
Impure spectrum in physics could easily be learnt by
students if their attention is call to examine a rainbow; it is
not unlikely that the following questions may be asked:
“How many colors are present in rainbow?”
“Where does one color starts and where does it end?”
Students could through this discover many colors of
rainbow that overlaps each others; these colors are not
distinctly separated and that is why science called it impure
spectrum.
5. Exploring the Environment
through Improvisation
Improvisation is a mean of using materials found in the
3
environment for the purpose of classroom instructions: it is
a process of using local materials found in the environment
to make instructional materials to substitute for the
unavailable standard materials.
The environment is full of materials that can be used in
classroom teaching as improvised instructional materials.
These include plastic materials, glass and bottles, iron
scraps, textiles, woods, wires, ceramic and even growing
plants; these are all useful for improvisation. Many of these
materials are sometimes regarded as pollutant in the
environment.
Recycling these for improvising teaching materials will
be an advantage to the society and also increase students’
creativity as they are involved in the improvisation process.
Kola (2007) advocated for the use of suitable plastic
materials in place of glass wares or breakable materials for
improvisation in physics class.
There are many instructional materials in physics that are
not readily available as a result of high cost; some are not
available in the class because of the danger such materials
poses to the students. Do we ignore these materials and
teach without them? We cannot ignore them but rather
improvised.
Improvised materials may not be able to give the exact
measured values because of precision and accuracy. That is
why Aina (2013) gave a caution that most of the
improvised material lack precision and accuracy in
measurement which may eventually be counterproductive
in the teaching and learning process.
However, according to Fakunle (2010), improvised
materials stimulate learner’s interest when effectively used.
Importance of improvisation in science teaching cannot be
overemphasized as Medugu and Mustapha (2013) observed
that lack of improvised material for teaching causes low
education standard.
Aina (2012) observed that most of the equipment used in
teaching physics can be improvised and physics teacher
should be diligent to make use of discarded materials in
his/her environment to improvise instructional materials.
At this era of Information and Communication
Technology [ICT] teachers must be able to make use of
available local resources in his/her environment to produce
instructional and learning materials in schools (Daniel,
2001).
Improvisation is good but if learners are excluded in the
improvisation process its aim may not be fully achieved.
Learner participating and source for improvisation
materials in their own environment makes them exposed to
creativity, innovation and curiosity, all of which are
fundamental to teaching and learning of science (Adeniran,
2006).
The under listed equipments in science were sampled out
of many that can be improvised using local resources found
in the environment.
• Electroscope
• Beam balance
• Methane molecular structure
4 Aina, Jacob Kola and Philip, Yamma Joseph: Imperative of Environment in Science Learning

6. Materials needed for the 7. Conclusion and recommendations

Improvisation The importance of environment to the learning of science
is obvious from this review. The environment is rich for
Fig. 1: Electroscope materials that can be used for science improvisation; there
Fig. 2: Beam balance are places students can visit for excursions and many
Fig. 3: Molecular structure of methane community resources for science learning. In the light of
A= copper wire the forgoing, the paper is reaching a conclusion that
B= cork environment is very important to science teaching; it is not
C= plastic bottle fully utilized for teaching science in Nigeria and this
D= aluminum foil contributed to students’ poor performance in science.
E= wooden plank In view of this conclusion the following
F= tin lid recommendations are hereby suggested:
G= nail • Environmental science should be included in
H= mass science curriculum
I & K= plastic balls representing hydrogen • Improvisation should be introduced as a topic to be
J= plastic ball representing carbon taught in all science subjects
Electroscope: copper wire, plastic bottle, cork, aluminum • Seminars, conferences and workshop should always
foil be organized for science teachers on the importance
Beam balance: wooden plank, tin lid, nails of community resources in science teaching
Molecular structure of methane: two different sizes of • Students should be mandated to always go for
plastic balls, wooden rods, glue science excursion
The above mentioned materials can be joined together to • Parents are to always be sensitized on the
improvise science equipment that can be used in classroom importance of home as a rich environment for
for teaching of physics, biology or chemistry as shown in science learning either through Parent Teacher
the diagrams below. Association or by special seminar, conference and
workshop for all parents
• Nigerians should be educated on the importance of
preserving our environment for science learning
• Every child from home should be made to
understand that his/her environment is full of
science learning resources, therefore it’s should be
preserved
• Every child should be made to understand that
useful science instructional materials could be made
from all discarded materials and must be properly
kept or disposed not to pollute the environment
with them

Acknowledgements
We appreciate the support of our colleagues, Alexander
G. Ogundele and Olanipekun, S. Shola who are always
assisting us in writing and all authors whose works we cited
in this review.
 Open Science Journal of Education 2013; 1(1): 1-6
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