Students of Vivekananda Vidya Mandir at the audio-visual room. Pix: Hardeep Singh

Ranchi, July 11: Biology lessons would now be made interesting, as school authorities are looking beyond textbooks.

Vivekananda Vidya Mandir, a city-based school, started audio-visual classes for nursery to Class XII students today.

Keeping up with technology, the school decided to introduce lessons with the help of audio-visual aids like CDs and DVDs.

Chief guest on the occasion, Sudeep Ghosh, the executive director of the Indian Institute of Coal Management, inaugurated the new unit. Swami Purvanandji, the secretary of the Ramakrishna Mission Tuberculosis Sanatorium, also attended the session. Ghosh also gave a talk on “human values” to students.

R.D. Bhattacharya, the secretary of the school, said: “Children have moved away from nature. Many have never seen a rainbow, a caterpillar or even a frog. Parents today tend to become over protective and fiercely career-oriented. Schools kids are made to attend dance, music and painting lessons after tuitions, which gives them little time to interact with nature. Hence, we decided to help them in an interesting way.”

He later added that he thought of introducing audio-visual aid after seeing it being used very effectively at the Ramakrishna Mission School in Deoghar. He thought of replicating the same model and ensuring that the content of the CDs would be strictly in accordance with the syllabus prescribed by the CBSE.

Bhattacharya said that the new teaching pattern would mean a lot of homework for teachers as well. Before each class they would have to see the entire CD and get acquainted with the details.

Aparajita Priyadarshini, the Class XII biology teacher, said: “In the past few years we have observed that children are able to grasp things better when explained with the help of real examples and images. Earlier, we used slides but now that educational films and videos have become easily available,the school management thought of introducing them. With these techniques, teaching the concepts of the circulatory systems, respiratory system and others will become much easier.”