While teaching the topic 'Water,' a teacher includes discussion on water…

Concept: An integrated approach to environmental studies organises learning around one real-life theme and draws from every discipline that the theme demands — natural science, social studies, language, health and values — instead of teaching each of those strands as a separate, self-contained subject. NCERT places EVS at the primary stage (Classes III–V) as a single integrated, theme-based subject for exactly this reason: the child meets the environment as one whole, not as separate school subjects.

Application to this item: The teacher keeps one theme, ‘Water’, and builds four different strands into it:

• Water sources — the physical/natural-science strand (rain, river, well, tap, groundwater).

• Uses of water — the everyday-life and social strand (drinking, cooking, farming, washing).

• Conservation — the values and attitude strand (saving water, avoiding wastage, responsibility).

• Local water issues — the community and social-studies strand (scarcity, supply, quality in the child’s own locality).

One theme, several disciplinary strands, and the child’s immediate surroundings used as the source of content — that is the defining signature of an integrated treatment. The approach shown is therefore the integrated approach.

Contrast with the other approaches:

• Subject-wise approach — the same content on water would be split up and taught in separate periods, its science part in science and its social part in social studies.

• Drill-based approach — the lesson would centre on repeated practice of fixed facts or answers until recall becomes automatic.

• Textbook-centred approach — the lesson would stay inside the prescribed chapter and its exercises, without bringing in local conditions.

• Integrated approach — one theme carries its science, social, language and value dimensions together, which is what the teacher does here.

Cross-check: Read the description once more against each of the other approaches. Subject-wise teaching would place the natural-science content (sources of water) and the social content (local water issues) in different subject slots, but here both sit inside a single lesson on one topic. Drill-based teaching is defined by repeated rehearsal of set responses, and textbook-centred teaching by staying within the prescribed chapter; the description states neither of these. What it does state is one topic discussed across several of its dimensions at the same time, and that is what integration means.