Into India Extension Activity 4

Extension Activities

CHAPTER: SAVING THE SYMBOLS

Students participate in a simulation game concerning the future of the Indian tiger. They go on to examine issues involved in the preservation of the Taj Mahal and other monuments in India. World urbanisation is then approached through looking at urbanisation in India and the chapter concludes with an analysis of the difficulties involved in maintaining water supply to India's people.

To explore additional ideas and resources for using this chapter of Into India, click on one of the following:

Teaching and Learning Activities | SOSE Profile | WWW Links | Annotated Bibliography

Teaching and Learning Activities

Here are some additional teaching and learning activities related to this chapter.

Investigation 1: The Endangered Indian Tiger-A Simulation Game

An Additional Preliminary Activity tiger
Before allocating students to their roles it may be useful to encourage them to think carefully about the perspectives of all the groups represented in the game. This can be done by asking students individually to make brief notes about the likely arguments and ideas of each group. This work will be useful when, in Step 5, groups are asked to devise questions to ask other groups after their presentations.

Investigation 2: The Taj Mahal-A Blighted Beauty
This Investigation is supported by the 'Love is in the Air' section of the Into India video.

Discussion Topic: Monumental Neglect
Before completing Activity 12 (p. 146), students could well consider the causes of neglect of monuments.

Point out to students that, until relatively recently, buildings were rarely preserved anywhere in the world unless they continued to be of use. Then ask students to suggest the reasons behind moves to conserve old buildings today. (Some reasons may already have been raised in this chapter.) Possible responses include:

As resources for historical study, so that we can learn about the past.
To give a sense of national pride and/or identity.
As tourist attractions, which generate economic activity.
For their intrinsic beauty.
Because we can learn about architecture from them.
Because they can still be used for some purpose.

These responses can, in turn, raise further questions about underlying values, such as the worth of historical study itself. Students can be invited to express their own views about which of the reasons advanced are valid and under what circumstances.

Point out that Indian civilisation is thousands of years old and that remains of old buildings are found throughout the country. Also point out that mass tourism is a relatively recent phenomenon in India. Then ask students to suggest possible reasons for the kind of 'neglect' of monuments reported in Resource 6 (p. 146). Suggestions could include the following:

There is little money available to conserve monuments. The Indian Government has other priorities.
Some people in India do not realise the tourism value of their monuments.
People need the monuments for housing. They live there because they have nowhere else to go.
Indian cities are crowded and space is in short supply. It would wasteful not to use the sites of monuments.
Some people can make money out of using the monuments.
Some people in India think that there are so many monuments that some of them will always remain.

Then ask students to consider the situation of monuments in Australia and compare it with the Indian situation. Discuss the reasons advanced in Australia for conservation or re-development.

Investigation 3: World Urbanisation

Writing Task: Slowing Urbanisation
After students have read Resources 4-7 (p. 150), discuss the factors advanced to explain the slowing of urbanisation in India. Also ask students to consider which of these factors could slow urbanisation in other countries and, in particular, in Australia.

Then ask students to put themselves in the position of advisors to the Indian Government, which has asked for advice about how to continue to slow urbanisation. The task is to complete a piece of written work providing appropriate advice.

Students can use any of the information already discussed, together with their own ideas. They should be warned, however, that they should not make expensive suggestions without also providing advice about how such suggestions can be funded.

Responses should be shared. A discussion of whether similar suggestions would be appropriate in Australia could follow.

Investigation 4: India's Thirst

Simulation Assignment
After completing Activities 13-16 (p. 162), students could profitably consider the effects on their own lives if water availability was restricted in the same way that it is for many Indian villagers.

The following exercises assume that students are living in areas with a town water supply. Students whose homes have other types of water supply can be invited to imagine that they live in a town. The first exercise puts students in a hypothetical (if somewhat artificial) situation, similar in some ways to that of many Indian village women, who visit a local well each day to fetch water.

The second exercise puts students in a situation somewhat similar to that of other Indian women who have to cover much greater distances every day to fetch water. Both situations can be printed as blackline masters for classroom use.

View Situation 1
View Situation 2

These exercises will be most effective if time is allocated to class discussion of the situations before students are asked to begin writing. The 'investigation' part of the exercises should be assigned outside class time but can, again, be discussed in class.

After completion of all tasks students should be given the opportunity to share and, again, discuss their work.

SOSE Profile Strands and Outcomes

This chapter provides opportunities for students to achieve learning outcomes at levels four to seven within the following strands and strand organisers specified in Studies of society and environment-a curriculum profile for Australian schools.

Strand Strand organisers

Time, continuity and change

Understanding the past
Time and change
Interpretations and perspectives

Place and space

Features of places
People and places
Care of places

Resources

Use of resources

Natural and social systems

Natural systems

Investigation, communication and participation

All strand organisers

A full listing of student outcomes can be found on p. 196 of Into India. Teachers are advised to consult their State or Territory curriculum documents for ways in which the activities and intended outcomes may be adapted to locally developed criteria.

WWW Links

India Profile
http://www.meadev.nic.in/info/info.htm
Extensive information about India's culture, economy, sports, social issues and media, as well as useful further links.

The World Factbook - India
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/in.html
Includes maps of India, political data and statistics about the Indian economy. Maintained by the CIA, the World Factbook site provides up-to-date facts about every country in the world.

India News Online
http://www.indianewsonline.com/
Provides links to many Indian publications, from daily newspapers to film, fashion and health magazines.

The India Today Group
http://www.india-today.com/
Publishers of India Today, one of India's leading magazines of news and current affairs. Includes current articles from India Today and a variety of other magazines published by the Group.

CNN.com Asia
http://asia.cnn.com/
CNN's site focusing on news from Asia. Includes links to special in-depth reports on important issues.

The Plight of India's Tigers
http://www.wpsi-india.org/wpsi/index.php
Includes current statistics about tiger population and poaching. Maintained by the Wildlife Protection Society of India.

Biodiversity profile of India
http://www.wcmc.org.uk/igcmc/main.html
Useful environment and geography page from the Indira Gandhi Conservation Monitoring Centre.

World Wild Fund for Nature - Tigers
http://archive.panda.org/species/tiger/
Information on the tiger, including its biology, population, distribution and threats.

Bibliography

Student Materials
Asia scope: Towards understanding Asia: the people, their cultures and environments 1994, (set of two videos), Film Australia & Curriculum Corporation.
Concerned with Asia as a whole. Specific countries provide examples and case studies. Volume Two deals with resource use and management in India. Available from Film Australia, PO Box 46, Lindfield NSW 2070.

Dufty, D. & Dufty, H. 1995 Asia 2000, Curriculum Corporation, Carlton, Victoria.
Includes some material about the use of forest resources in India (p. 34).

In search of an identity 1996, (27 minute video), Film Australia, Lindfield NSW.
One of a series of documentaries exploring the impact of global economic change on people's lives. A few years ago, fashion designer Bina Rammani set up her design studio in Haus Khas, on the outskirts of Delhi. Other entrepreneurs soon joined her but sudden development transformed local life. Available from Film Australia, PO Box 46, Lindfield NSW 2070.

Reference Materials
Aziz, Tariq 1993, 'Raging demand for skins and bones decimates the tiger', WWF INDIA quarterly, Jul-Sept, pp. 6-11.
A report on the illegal trade in Indian tiger products.

Bardhan, Pranab 1984, The political economy of development in India, Oxford University Press, Delhi.

Chaplin, S. E. 1994, 'The Environment in India and Australia' in Australia and South Asia: a blueprint for 2001?, ed. Vicziany, M. & McPherson, K., National Centre for South Asian Studies and the Indian Ocean Centre for Peace Studies, October, 1994.

Cork, B. T. 1990, Tigers, Franklin Watts, London.

Grewal, R. 1997, In Rajasthan, Lonely Planet Publications, Hawthorn, Victoria.
Travels in Rajasthan. Includes a visit to a Project Tiger sanctuary (p. 49f).

Mosse, J. C. 1991, India: paths to development, Oxfam Publishing, Oxford, UK.

Naipaul, V. S. 1991, India: a million mutinies now, Minerva, London.

Seager, J. (ed.) 1995, The state of the environment atlas, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth.

Srinivas, M. N. 1976, The remembered village, University of California Press, Berkeley.
The well-known scholar's readable description of life in an Indian village.

Tully, M. 1992, No fullstops in India, Penguin Books, New Delhi.
The experiences and perceptive observations of the former BBC India correspondent.

Water in our environment: a teacher information kit 1993, Melbourne Water.

Curriculum Corporation and the University of Melbourne