INTRODUCTION

Environmental degradation has become a threat to the very existence of man, and plant and animal life as well. In one-way or the other every body contributes to the falling standard of the environment and hardly speaks about what they do, hence the silent enemy. The lesson was intended to create the awareness among young people of the detrimental effect of environmental degradation. The student brainstorm and also went on the net to search for information on the degraded nature of the environment and how to correct the situation, with regards to farming practice. The groups were then made to write group report for presentation, again using the computers.

SUCCESSES AND CHALLENGES

The lesson was interesting and challenging to the students. This was so because as agricultural students most of them have always looked at high productivity as the goal of production without given much thought about the goal of conserving and preserving the environment. It therefore became fascinating to most of them when they realized the huge work done on preserving the environment. However the number of the computers connected to the Internet posed a big limitation to the work. There were also difficulties sometimes with connectivity, which was as a result of the dial up system been used.

CLASSROOM ORGANIZATION AND LOGISTICS

The student-computer ratio was quite high, about 10 students to a computer. The group therefore had to divide the responsibility among the members. Every body there fore was made active in the groups. When connectivity was possible they had to down load onto the floppy and made them work mostly offline. For most of the students the experience to work with and find relevant information from the net was exciting

SUGGESTED CHANGES

It will be very useful for the school to expand the IT laboratory to suit the student population and to enhance the use of the net as a resource for teaching and learning. If it would be possible the radio link for connectivity should be change for a radio links, which is more efficient. Some of the useful sites should be downloaded onto the local disc.

FEEDBACK

The students groups worked very hard, in spite of the challenges to fish their work on schedule. For most of the students the experience to work with and find relevant information from the net was exciting. The responses obtained that were read in the class were very encouraging, diversified, current and relevant to the local situation. Some of the groups requested that learning should actually take that form all the time

ASSESSMENT

The entire student increased their confidence in the use of the computer and the Internet facilities. The levels of passes were generally very high and students' interest in learning was highly boosted. Students' participation in the teaching and learning process was relatively very high.

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