Authors :

G. Nagaraj, and S.P. Kulkarni

Author Address :

Zoology Section, Regional Institute of Education, (NCERT), Manasagangothri, Mysore - 570 006, Karnataka, India. Email : gnriem@gmail.com

Abstract :

Innovative teaching (of Science) is the process of implementation of new methods, tools and contents which benefit  learners, leads to creative and self learning and promotes learning to learn. In   this context, the present study aims to design and propose a group of innovative, improvised and relatively low-cost experiments for the school students (IX-XII class) to study the behavioral response of Paramecium to various stimuli. A critical review is made on the studies which made an effort to explain  the behavioral responses of Paramecium to various environmental stimuli. Paramecium is a genus of unicellular ciliated protozoa, commonly studied as a representative organism of the ciliate group; some species are readily cultivated and used in laboratories to study its’ biological processes.

In the present study, Paramecia are cultured by ‘hay infusion’ method with the use of hay and rice grains. Simple experimental setups are designed by using low-cost materials like black  paper, thermo coal piece, sponge, battery cells, micro-slide etc.  To study the chemo, photo, thermo, electro and magnetotaxic behavior of Paramecium. The effectiveness of these experiments was also tested with I semester B.Sc.
Ed students of RIE Mysore. Since the very basic aim of Science Education is that the learner not only should learn the concepts of Science, but also the method and the process of it, we strongly believe that  the present newly designed simple experiments will definitely help to stimulate such ability of learning to learn. It will also give an insight to the learners to improvise/design such experiments for other organisms. In addition, because of its’ simplicity, relatively low-cost, attractive and innovativeness, we happily and confidently propose these experiments for the school students (IX-XII class) to achieve the valuable aims of Science Teaching.

Keywords :

IX - XII class school students, Paramecium, environmental stimuli, hay infusion and behaviour