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NCERT Solutions Curiosity Chapter 2 Activity 2.2: Let us appreciate — — How much variety does one class know?

Book page 13 Updated on2026-09-05

Q1.
What are your observations about the various plants and animals that have been drawn?
Answer

After every student has drawn on the blackboard, three things stand out.

  • Hardly any two drawings are the same. Even with 40 students, the board fills up with mango, neem, tulsi, rose, sunflower, banana, cow, dog, parrot, peacock, butterfly, elephant, fish, cat — an enormous variety from one small locality.
  • Some appear again and again. Mango, rose, cow, parrot and butterfly are drawn by many students, because they are common and easy to notice.
  • Every drawing shows different features. Some plants have thick trunks, some thin stems; some animals have four legs, some two, some none; some have wings, some fins.
Why the drawings differ so much: each student chose the plant or animal they had watched closely and liked most. Since everyone's home, street and experience is different, the class as a whole ends up recording far more biodiversity than any one person could.
Did you know? Closing your eyes for 30 seconds before drawing is not a game — it forces you to recall the plant or animal from memory of your own observation, not from a picture in a book.
Q2.
How many different plants and animals did the entire class draw on the blackboard?
Answer

Count them on the board and write the actual number for your class. In a class of about 40 students the usual result is:

Students in the class = 40
Drawings made = 40 plants + 40 animals = 80 drawings
After removing repeats → about 20–25 different plants and 20–25 different animals
Why the count of different kinds is smaller than the number of drawings: several students draw the same popular mango tree or the same cow. Repeats must be counted only once, because we are counting varieties, not pictures. This is exactly how scientists count species in a forest — the same tiger seen twice is still one tiger.
Tip: Make two columns on the board, "Plants" and "Animals", and put a tally mark next to a name each time it is repeated. You then get both the number of different kinds and the most common kind, in one go.
Q3.
Do you think that there may be many more varieties of plants and animals other than those drawn on the board?
Answer

Yes — very many more. The board shows only what one class in one locality happened to remember.

  • Even in your own town there are plants and animals nobody drew — bougainvillea, ashoka, bamboo, water hyacinth, earthworms, spiders, snails, honeybees, bats, owls.
  • Move a little further and the list changes completely — cactus in the Rajasthan desert, deodar in the Himalayas, mangroves in the Sundarbans, corals and colourful fish around the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
  • Many living things are simply too small to notice, and many are active only at night.
Why it happens: the variety of plants and animals in a region is its biodiversity, and India is one of the richest countries in the world for it. What a class can list is limited by where they live and what they have looked at — not by how much life actually exists.
Try This: Repeat the same activity with a class in another state through a letter or a video call. Compare the two boards. The number of names common to both lists will surprise you — it will be small.
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