Extension Activities Crowded India Sanjeet's Day The Magnificent Mughals Access Asia | India | WWW Links | Bibliography | Into India | Raining Surprises and Exploring India | Into India Extension Activities | Raining Surprises and Exploring India Extension Activities | Access Asia Lesson Plans CROWDED INDIA Key Learning Areas: Studies of Society and Environment, Mathematics The 'Crowded India' section of Exploring India (p. 17) is intended to allow students to develop some understanding of the magnitude of India's population and compare it with that of Australia. To explore additional ideas and resources for using this chapter of Into India, click on one of the following: Teaching and Learning Activities | WWW Links | Annotated Bibliography Teaching and Learning Activities Before students begin 'Crowded India' it would be best if they had completed at least some of the activities in 'India ­ Location and Size' (Exploring India, p.6). This will assist them in working with the map of India and allow them to have some understanding of the physical size of India. When using the outline maps of India and Australia, note that they are not to the same scale. The area of Australia is actually about twice the area of India. Preliminary Reading and Discussion Read with students the passage of Raining Surprises (p. 15) in which Henry, the young Australian, finds himself in thick traffic in New Delhi. Allow for questions and comments. Introduce the following questions if they are not raised by students: What is an auto rickshaw? (There are photographs of auto rickshaws on p. 15 and p. 42 of Raining Surprises.) Why might there be cows in the city streets? Why might it be that 'there don't appear to be any rules'? Why might the car horn used so much? Why might there be so much traffic in Delhi? The last question can have a variety of possible answers but the most obvious is that there are a lot of people in Delhi. This leads to other questions such as 'Just how many people are there?', 'How does that compare with Australian cities?' and, possibly, 'How does the population of India compare with that of Australia?' Explain that students are going to do some work which will allow them to answer these questions. Then go on to the teaching/learning activities in 'Crowded India'. Urban and Rural Population In 'Crowded India', students distribute rice grains on maps of India and Australia to represent population. An alternative way of distributing the grains of rice is to ask students first to mark on their maps the major cities of India and Australia and then to place one grain of rice for every million people on or near each city. Then ask students how many rice grains are left over. (In the case of India, the number left over is best calculated by subtraction.) If students are familiar with percentages, ask them to calculate the percentage of Indians living in the largest cities and the percentage of Australians living in the capital cities. In any case, discuss the meaning of the result that a much lower proportion of Indians live in the largest cities. Ask students then to distribute the remaining rice on their maps, without disturbing the rice which marks the population of the cities. In the case of India, this will be difficult! Discuss this difficulty and likely reasons behind it. Ask students to suggest ways they could distribute their rice on the Indian map and still show the populations of the main cities clearly. One way is to colour the rice grains used for the cities. Poster Making When students have distributed their rice grains, ask them to create small displays. This can be done by using glue to fix the rice grains to the maps and providing explanatory labels. Ensure that at least the main cities of India and Australia are labelled. A better poster could be made by copying the maps on large pieces of card and gluing rice grains to the card. Each country can then be labelled with its total population, main cities, capital and flag. Writing Task At the conclusion of their work on 'Crowded India', ask students to imagine that the capital city of their State or Territory has the same population as Mumbai (Bombay). Then ask them to write an account of what the city would be like. Alternatively, ask for an imaginative piece about a day in the city. WWW Links Discover India on eWorld http://www.indonet.com/DiscoverIndiaoneWorld.html Has the 'India File' of facts and figures, charts, graphs and tables, together with a variety of articles and essays about Indian art, culture, history, geography and society. Also the Discussion Board of questions and answers. 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. Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India http://meaindia.nic.in/ Includes many links and is strong in politics, current affairs and the economy. Features 'Gandhi, a retrospective' at http://www.meadev.nic.in/Gandhi/intro.htm. More India WWW links. Bibliography Student Materials Harcourt, L. & Govil, R. 1994 'Eyes on India', Pursuit, Issue 2, 1994, Marayanga Publications, pp. 2-5. An account of Leah and Radha's trip to India, along a route similar to that taken by Henry in Raining Surprises. Includes a range of colour photographs. This issue of Pusuit focuses on Asia. Published by Marayanga Publications, PO Box 258, Prahran, Victoria 3181. Reference Materials Kidron, M. & Segal, R. (eds) 1995, The state of the world atlas, revised fifth edition, Penguin Reference, London. Robinson, F. (ed) 1989, The Cambridge encyclopedia of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan and the Maldives, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Seager, J. (ed) 1995, The state of the environment atlas, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth. Access Asia | India | WWW Links | Bibliography | Into India | Raining Surprises and Exploring India | Into India Extension Activities | Raining Surprises and Exploring India Extension Activities | Access Asia Lesson Plans  Curriculum Corporation and the University of Melbourne