NCERT Solutions Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 10 Earth Our Shared Home

F R E E S T U D Y M AT E R I A L F O R E V E R Y S T U D E N T

CLASS 5 · THE WORLD AROUND US

NCERT Solutions

Chapter 10: Earth—Our Shared
Home

NCERT Textbook — Our Wondrous World

BOOK PAGES SECTIONS QUESTIONS MEDIUM

161 – 176 17 33 English

Solutions, notes, sample papers & more at 50 pages

Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 10 Earth—Our Shared Home AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

CLASS 5 · THE WORLD AROUND US · OUR WONDROUS WORLD

NCERT Solutions — Chapter 10: Earth—Our Shared
Home
Chapter 10 is the last chapter of Our Wondrous World and it closes Unit 5, Our Amazing Planet. It begins with
an astronaut's view — from space the Earth looks like one whole ball with no borders drawn on it — and then
tells six true stories of things that travelled: birds from Russia and Mongolia, yoga from India to the world,
chilli from South America, sugar from India, the marigold from Mexico, and Indian cows to Brazil. It ends with
Web of Life and One Earth, One Family — the old Indian saying Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam. The chapter
carries five numbered Activities, seven Write boxes, two Discuss boxes and the closing Let us reflect set
of 3. There is no exercise at the end — the questions are spread right through the chapter. A note on the PDF:
the file has 24 pages but the chapter itself ends at printed page 176. The last eight pages are not chapter
material and there is no glossary — they are the book's end-matter Seasons' Journal (a blank nature-diary
with the five themes and four term pages) followed by two ruled Notes pages, so nothing there is answered
here.

TEXTBOOK BOOK PAGES

Our Wondrous World (Class 5) 161 – 176

SECTIONS QUESTIONS

17 33

MEDIUM

English

Activity 1 — Page 162
The Blue Planet — my address on this planet

ACTIVITY

Q1 1. My address — Name: ___ House number/building name: ___ Street name: ___
Village/Town/City: ___ District: ___ State/Union Territory: ___ Country: ___ Planet: ___

Fill the lines from the smallest place to the biggest place, and write Earth on the last line.
That last line is the same for every child in the world — and that is exactly why the box is printed
here.
How to fill it, step by step:

1. Write your full name, the way it is written in the school register.
2. Write your house number, or the name of your building. If your house has no number, write
a landmark — “beside the peepal tree”, “opposite the anganwadi”.
3. Write the name of your street or lane. In a village this may be your mohalla or tola.

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Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 10 Earth—Our Shared Home AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

4. Write your village, town or city.
5. Write your district. Look at the top of a school notice or a ration card if you are not sure.
6. Write your State or Union Territory.
7. Write your country — India.
8. Write your planet — Earth.

Sample answer — yours will be different for the first seven lines, and exactly the same for the
last one.

LINE SAMPLE ANSWER HOW BIG IS THIS?

Name Aarav Kumar One person

House number/building name 14, Shanti Nivas One house

Street name Gandhi Marg A few hundred people

Village/Town/City Rampur A few thousand people

District Varanasi Many villages and towns together

State/Union Territory Uttar Pradesh Crores of people

Country India More than 140 crore people

Planet Earth Every single person, animal and plant we know of

Why the box ends with ‘Planet’: Each line you write covers more people than the
line above it. By the last line you have included everybody — the child in Kerala, the
child in Mongolia, the farmer, the astronaut, and also the cow, the neem tree and the
rosy starling. Nobody has a different answer for that line. That is the whole idea of
this chapter: the first seven lines make us different; the eighth line makes us one
family.

Did you know? DIGIPIN does something similar in a shorter way. It gives every
small place in India its own special 10-character digital code — a kind of name tag
for your home or school. It helps a postman, an ambulance or a delivery person find
you faster, even in a big city or a scattered village.

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Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 10 Earth—Our Shared Home AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Q2 2. Use a globe and find out: a. Are all the oceans on Earth connected with each
other?

Yes. All the oceans are joined together. They are really one huge body of salty water that we
have divided into parts and given five names — the Pacific Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean, the Indian
Ocean, the Southern Ocean and the Arctic Ocean.
Check it yourself on the globe:

1. Put your finger on the sea just south of India. That is the Indian Ocean.
2. Slide your finger westwards, below the southern tip of Africa. Do not lift it. You are now in the
Atlantic Ocean.
3. Keep sliding west and then south, below South America. Still no land in the way. You are now
in the Pacific Ocean.
4. Keep going west across the Pacific until you are back below Australia and into the Indian
Ocean again.
5. You have gone right round the world without lifting your finger off the water even once.
That proves the oceans are connected.

Pacific + Atlantic + Indian + Southern + Arctic = one connected ocean
Water covers about three-fourths of the Earth's surface

Why this matters in this chapter: Because the water is joined, a fish, a turtle or a
whale can swim from one country's coast to another's without ever crossing a
border. Rubbish thrown into a river in one place can also be carried by that same
water to a beach far away. Connected water is a gift and a warning at the same time
— it is the clearest proof that nature has no boundaries.

Look again: The blue on the globe is not one flat colour. Light blue usually means
shallow water near the coast; dark blue means the deep, open ocean. Look for the
light blue ring around India — that is where our fishing boats go.

Q3 2. Use a globe and find out: b. Where is India on the globe?

India is in the southern part of Asia, north of the Indian Ocean. Turn the globe until you find
the big landmass of Asia. India hangs down from it like a wide triangle pointing into the sea.

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How to find it in five steps:
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m a s emlies above it,
1. Find the equator — the line drawn right around the middle of the globe. India

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in the northern
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2. Findsthe
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India.

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4. Look for the mountains marked along its top edge — that is the Himalaya.
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5. Now look at the water around it. The sea

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Bay of Bengal, and below the pointed

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DIRECTION FROM INDIA WHAT YOU WILL SEE ON THE GLOBE

The Himalaya, and beyond them China and Nepal, e m
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North Bhutan

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West Pakistan, the Arabian Sea, and further away the Arab lands

East Bangladesh, Myanmar and the Bay of Bengal

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South Sri Lanka, and then the wide open Indian Ocean

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Far north-west Russia and Mongolia — where our winter birds come from

Right across the world South America and Mexico — where chilli and marigold came from

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.c after it. That is not an accident. For thousands ofayears
One thing worth noticing: India is the only country in the world with an ocean

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Your teacher may show you these too: Mexico, Portugal, South America, Brazil,
Russia and Mongolia. Find each one on the globe as you read its story, and put a
small paper flag on it. By the end of the chapter your globe will be covered with
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In-text Questions — Page 164
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Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 10 Earth—Our Shared Home AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Story 1: The Travelling Birds!

Q1 Have you seen pink and black birds flying in big groups?

If you have seen a great crowd of small birds turning together in the sky like a moving
cloud of smoke, then yes — you have probably seen rosy starlings. They are almost never
seen alone. They travel, feed and roost in flocks of hundreds or even thousands.
What to look for:

The colour. A grown-up rosy starling has a pink or rosy body with a black head, black
wings and black tail. Young birds are much plainer — brownish and buff, like the bird
drawn on page 164 — so a flock does not look all pink.
The size. About the size of a common myna, which it is related to. Sharp yellowish-pink beak,
a small crest on the head.
The flock. The photograph on page 164 shows exactly this — thousands of birds over a
green field, packed so close that the flock looks like one dark shape being poured through
the air.
The sound. A loud, chattering, squeaky noise from a tree at sunset, when the whole flock
settles down together to sleep.
The season. Winter. They arrive around October and leave by about March or April.

Why they fly in such big groups: A single small bird is easy for a hawk to catch. A
thousand birds twisting and turning together confuse the hawk — it cannot fix its
eye on any one bird. The flock is also useful for finding food: when one bird drops
onto a field full of grasshoppers, the rest follow at once. Flying together is how a
small, weak bird makes itself safe and well fed.

Go and look: In winter, watch a big tree near a field just before sunset. If the tree
suddenly becomes noisy and birds keep pouring into it from every direction, you
have found a roost. Stand quietly and count how long the birds keep arriving.

Q2 Is it not amazing that such a small bird can travel so far and be so helpful?

Yes — and both halves of that sentence are worth thinking about separately. The journey is
amazing because the bird is so small. The help is amazing because the bird is not trying to help
us at all.

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Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 10 Earth—Our Shared Home AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

1. The journey. A rosy starling weighs less than a small packet of biscuits. Yet every autumn it
flies from the southern part of Russia and Mongolia down across Central Asia to India —
several thousand kilometres — and every spring it flies all the way back. Nobody gives it a map.
It has no engine, no fuel tank and no place to stop and rest for long. It does it on the strength of
its own two wings.
2. The help. In India it eats locusts and grasshoppers. Those insects chew up wheat, jowar,
bajra and grass. So a flock of these birds settling on a field is like a free army of pest-eaters
arriving for the farmer. The birds are only looking for their dinner — but their dinner happens to
be the farmer's enemy.

WHAT THE BIRD GETS FROM INDIA WHAT INDIA GETS FROM THE BIRD

Warm weather while its own country is frozen Crop pests eaten in huge numbers

Plenty of insects and grain to eat Less damage to wheat, jowar and bajra

Big trees and reed beds to roost in safely Less need to buy poison to kill the insects

The real lesson: Neither side planned this. The bird did not decide to help farmers,
and the farmers did not invite the bird. It works because living things need each
other in ways they do not even know about. That is what the chapter means by a
web of life — pull one thread and something far away moves. And because the bird
crosses several countries on the way, keeping it alive is not the work of India alone.

Something to remember: If the trees where these birds rest are cut, or if the fields
are sprayed with strong poison that kills every insect, the birds have nowhere to stop
and nothing to eat. Then they stop coming — and the pests come back. Protecting
one roosting tree is a small act with a long reach.

Write — Page 164
Story 1: The Travelling Birds!

WRITE

Q1 1. Does the rosy starling visit your area? What is it called locally?

Find out by asking, not by guessing. The rosy starling comes to most parts of India in winter,
but it is much commoner in some places than others — so the honest answer is the one you get
from a farmer, a grandparent or a bird-watcher near you.

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Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 10 Earth—Our Shared Home AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

How to find out:

1. Show the picture on page 164 to an elder in your family or to a farmer, and ask, “Does this
bird come here? When?”
2. Ask what they call it in your own language. Farmers usually have a name for it, because they
see it in the fields.
3. Go and look for yourself between about October and March, near fields, near flowering
trees, and near a big roosting tree at sunset.
4. Write down three things: the local name, the months it is seen, and where in your area you
saw it.

Sample answer: Yes, the rosy starling comes to our area every winter. It appears around the
end of October and stays till about March. We see it in big flocks over the jowar fields and on the
flowering semal tree near the canal. In our language people call it tiliyar; my grandmother also
calls it gulabi maina.

WHAT TO WRITE SAMPLE

Does it come here? Yes — every winter, in large flocks

When? About October to March

Where do we see Over the fields, on flowering trees, and roosting in a big tree at sunset
it?

Local name Tiliyar in many parts of north India; gulabi maina or gulabi sarika in the Hindi textbook;
bhoradi in parts of Maharashtra

If it does not come Write that honestly, and name a different winter visitor that does come — a duck, a
here crane, a wagtail or a flamingo

Why the local name is asked for: A name in your own language is proof that
people around you have known this bird for a very long time. Scientists call it one
thing; your village calls it another; the Hindi book calls it गुलाबी मैना . All three names
are for the same bird. Collecting the local name is a small way of saving knowledge
that is slowly being forgotten.

Be honest: If nobody in your area has seen it, write “I could not find anyone who has
seen it here.” That is a perfectly good answer and it is true. A made-up answer
teaches you nothing.

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Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 10 Earth—Our Shared Home AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Q2 2. What does this story tell us about nature?

It tells us that nature is one connected thing, and that it takes no notice of the borders
people draw. A bird born in Mongolia feeds an Indian farmer's field, and neither of them ever
meets the other.
Four things the story teaches:

1. Nature has no boundaries. The bird needs no passport. It crosses several countries in a
single journey, because the air and the land are continuous.
2. Living things depend on each other. The bird needs India's warm winter and its insects.
The farmer's crop needs the bird. The insect, the bird, the crop and the farmer are four links
in one chain.
3. Something small can do something big. A bird you can hold in your hand crosses a
continent and protects a field. Size is not the same as importance.
4. Care has to be shared. The bird's summer home is in another country, its winter home is
here, and it rests in several places in between. If any one of those places is destroyed, the
bird disappears from all of them. So no single country can save it alone.

One chain, four links — and the third link flies in from
Mongolia

Grass and Locusts eat Rosy starling Crop
crops grow the crop eats locusts saved

Take away the bird and the second link grows out of control.

The bird is not a visitor to the field. It is part of how the field works.

Say it in one line: Nature is not divided into countries; it is divided into jobs, and
every living thing is doing one of them. The rosy starling's job in India is eating the
insects that eat our food — and it does that job for free, every winter, without being
asked.

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Activity 2 — Page 165
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Story 1: The Travelling Birds!
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Choose five birds that really are winter visitors to India, draw or paste each one, and write

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3. In each box draw the bird, or paste a picture cut from an old newspaper or magazine.

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4. Under each bird write four short lines: name, local name, where it comes from, where we
see it here.
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5. Draw a small arrow on each box pointing in the direction the bird comes from. Most of our
winter birds come from the north.

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6. Ask a farmer, a fisherman or a bird-watcher before you finish, and correct anything you got
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Sample — five birds that come to India in winter

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Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 10 Earth—Our Shared Home AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

BIRD WHERE IT WHERE YOU MAY SEE SOMETHING TO NOTICE
COMES FROM IT IN INDIA

Rosy starling Southern Russia, Over fields, on flowering Huge flocks that twist in the
(gulabi maina, Mongolia and trees, roosting in big sky; eats locusts and
tiliyar) nearby countries trees at sunset grasshoppers

Bar-headed Mongolia and Lakes and river Two dark bars on the back
goose Central Asia sandbanks in the north of its head. It flies over the
and centre of India Himalaya

Demoiselle crane Central Asia and Khichan in Rajasthan, Villagers at Khichan feed
(kurjan) Mongolia and fields in Gujarat and them grain every winter
Rajasthan morning

Northern pintail Siberia and Central Village ponds, tanks and The male has a long, thin,
(a duck) Asia lakes almost all over pointed tail
India

Amur falcon Siberia and northern Doyang, Nagaland — it Nagaland villages that once
China stops there on its way to hunted it now protect it
Africa

Why we must find out where they come from: A bird's home is not only where you
see it. This duck on your village pond may have hatched in Siberia. That is a fact you
cannot get by looking — you have to find it out. And once you know it, the pond
behind your school stops being just a pond. It becomes the last stop of a journey
that began thousands of kilometres away.

Ask before you draw: Every place has its own list. On the coast you may add
flamingos and gulls; near a big lake, pelicans and storks; in the hills, thrushes and
redstarts. Put on the poster the birds your place actually gets.

Q2 2. Using a string, trace the journey on a globe showing the paths rosy starlings take
(Russia/Mongolia → India).

Tie one end of the string over southern Russia and Mongolia, and bring the other end
down to India. Hold it flat against the globe and you will see the route bend south-west across
Central Asia and come into India from the north-west.
How to do it:

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Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 10 Earth—Our Shared Home AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

1. Take a piece of thick coloured wool about 40 cm long. Coloured wool shows up better than
thread.
2. Find Mongolia and the southern part of Russia on the globe. Press one end of the string
there and hold it with a small piece of tape or a bit of clay.
3. Bring the string down and to the left, across Central Asia — Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan,
Afghanistan.
4. Bring it over the mountains and down into north-west India — Rajasthan and Gujarat.
5. Tape the second end there. Now spread a shorter piece of string from there across the rest
of India, because the flocks scatter after they arrive.
6. Measure the string against the globe's scale, or simply say aloud how many countries it
crossed.

Southern Russia · Mongolia
summer home — the birds nest here
south, every autumn

back again in spring
Across Central Asia

Over the mountains

INDIA — winter home

The route in simple form. On the globe the same journey bends south-west across several countries.

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Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 10 Earth—Our Shared Home AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

WHAT THE STRING WHAT IT MEANS
SHOWS

The string is long The journey is several thousand kilometres each way — roughly 4,000 to 5,000
km

It crosses many countries The bird passes over lands where different languages are spoken and different
money is used. It notices none of this

It goes over high The birds must cross cold, thin air and strong winds on the way
mountains

The same string works They come south in autumn and go back north in spring, along much the same
both ways path

Why a string on a globe is better than a line on a flat map: The Earth is a ball. On
a flat map the distances near the top of the page are stretched and wrong. A string
laid on a globe follows the real shape of the Earth, so it shows the real path and the
real length. That is exactly why sailors and pilots have always used globes.

Try this too: With a second string of a different colour, trace the chilli's journey from
South America to India (Activity 3). Now you have one string coming in and one
going out — the beginning of the map you will make in Activity 5.

Q3 3. Imagine you are a bird travelling the world. Write a short postcard or note about
what you see and what helps you on your journey (wind, ocean currents, warm
weather). Share it with your classmates.

Write it in the bird's own voice, and put in at least three things that help you on the way —
the wind, the warm weather, and the places where you stop to rest and feed. Keep it short:
a postcard has very little room.
What a good postcard must have:

1. Where you started from and where you are going.
2. Two or three things you saw on the way.
3. What helped you — wind behind you, warm air, the sea, a lake to drink at, a field of insects, a
tall tree to sleep in.
4. What was hard — cold, storms, tiredness, hunger, hunters, or a wetland that had been filled
in.
5. One line about how you feel.

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Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 10 Earth—Our Shared Home AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Sample answer

POSTCARD

Dear friends of Class 5,

I am a rosy starling. I left Mongolia six days ago with about four hundred cousins, because the grass
there had turned brown and the nights had begun to freeze.

On the first day we crossed a yellow-brown desert with no water at all. On the third day we came to a
wide lake and drank until our beaks ached. Yesterday we crossed mountains with snow on top. The air up
there was so thin and cold that we flew in one tight ball to keep warm.

Three things are helping me. A strong wind is pushing from behind, so I glide and hardly beat my wings.
The air gets warmer every day as we go south. And there are fields and lakes to stop at along the way —
without them we could not do this.

Tomorrow we should reach India. There will be jowar fields full of grasshoppers, a warm sun, and a big
peepal tree where the whole flock will sleep and shout together at sunset.

Please leave that tree standing. It is my house for the winter.

Yours, with tired wings,
Gulabi

To: Class 5, Government Primary School, Rampur, India, Planet Earth

Why writing as the bird works so well: The moment you say “I”, you have to think
about what the journey actually feels like — the cold, the hunger, the wind, the fear.
Facts you only read get forgotten. Facts you have felt from the inside stay. And
notice the last line of the address: even a bird's postcard ends with Planet Earth.

When you share it: Read four or five postcards aloud in class and then ask one
question — “Which helper did most people mention?” Almost everybody will have
written about the wind. That is because it really is a bird's biggest helper: flying with
the wind behind saves an enormous amount of strength.

Write — Page 165

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Nature has no boundaries
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It means that the lines people have drawn
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seeds, birds, fish and butterflies all move freely across the world.
Look at what actually crosses:
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WHAT CROSSES AN EXAMPLE YOU CAN CHECK

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Air and wind The monsoon wind that brings our rain forms over the ocean, far from India

a Clouds and rain A cloud made over the Bay of Bengal drops its rain on Assam, hundreds of kilometres

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Rivers Rivers begin in one land, pass through others and reach the sea in yet another

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The rosy starling flies from Russia and Mongolia to India every winter

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Fish and sea
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All the oceans are joined, so a turtle can swim from one country's coast to another's
animals
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Chilli from South America and marigold from Mexico now grow all over India

agl Dust and smoke Dust blown from a far-off desert settles on our cities

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And the sentence has a second half, which
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1. Because nature is shared, the
2. Because nature is shared,
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not stay there. Rubbish thrown into a river travels down it and out into the sea.

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3. So looking after air, water and living things cannot be one country's job. It has to be
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border was visible from outside. He was not making a wish; he was describing what
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Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 10 Earth—Our Shared Home AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Try this in class: Ask everyone to hold their breath for five seconds, then breathe
out. Say: that air is now leaving the room, going out of the window, over the town
and away. Nobody can call it back and nobody owns it. That is what ‘nature has no
boundaries’ means, in one breath.

In-text Question — Page 166
Story 2: Yoga—India's Gift to the World!

Q1 Did you know that yoga has been practised in India for more than 3,000 years?

Yes — yoga is more than 3,000 years old, which means people in India were doing it long
before most of the buildings, languages and countries we know today even existed. It was
not invented as exercise. It was a way to keep the body healthy, the mind peaceful, and to live in
harmony with oneself and with nature.
To feel how long 3,000 years is:

1. You are about 10 years old.
2. Your grandparents are perhaps 65 or 70.
3. Three thousand years is about a hundred grandparents, one after another.
4. In all those hundred lifetimes, somebody in this land was sitting down cross-legged,
breathing slowly, and passing the practice on to the next person.

WHAT IS VERY OLD IN INDIA ROUGHLY HOW OLD

Yoga More than 3,000 years

Ayurveda, one of the oldest forms of medicine More than 3,000 years

Making jaggery from sugarcane juice Very old — India discovered it first

Writing down zero Ancient India; the idea then spread across the world

Chilli in Indian food Only about 400 to 500 years

Why the last row is worth staring at: Yoga is more than 3,000 years old. Chilli is
about 450 years old in India. So a practice we sent out to the world is far older than a
food that feels completely Indian to us. Things go out and things come in, all the
time — and after a few hundred years nobody can tell any more which was which.
That is exactly the point of this chapter.

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Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 10 Earth—Our Shared Home AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Did you know? The United Nations in 2014 declared 21 June as the International
Day of Yoga. On that one day, millions of people around the world do yoga together
— in parks, on beaches, in school grounds and on office roofs.

Discuss — Page 167
Story 2: Yoga—India's Gift to the World!

DISCUSS

Q1 Why do you think yoga became popular in so many countries?

Because it needs almost nothing, it can be done by almost anybody, and it helps with
exactly the problems people have today. Those three reasons together explain it better than
any one of them alone.
Talk about these points in your group:

1. It costs nothing. No machine, no ball, no ground to hire, no team to collect. A mat and a
little floor space are enough. A person can do it at home, in a park or on a roof.
2. Anybody can do it. A child, a grandmother, a farmer, a person in a wheelchair — each can do
the part that suits them. You do not have to be young, strong or fast.
3. It helps with today's troubles. Many people now sit all day, look at screens, and sleep
badly. Yoga stretches a stiff body, eases back and neck pain, and the slow breathing calms a
worried mind.
4. It works on the body and the mind together. Most exercises train only the body. Yoga also
teaches you to sit still, breathe slowly and pay attention. People value that.
5. Indians carried it with them. Travellers, scholars and teachers from India shared yoga
wherever they went, and Indians who settled in other countries kept practising it.
Neighbours watched, asked, and joined in.
6. It belongs to everyone. You do not have to change your religion, your food or your
language to practise it. That made it easy for people in very different countries to accept.
7. Books, films and then the internet. Once a thing can be watched on a screen, it can be
learnt in a village in any country on the same evening.
8. The United Nations put it on the calendar. Since 2014, 21 June is the International Day of
Yoga. A fixed day every year, with millions doing it together, made it known even to people
who had never heard of it.

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Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 10 Earth—Our Shared Home AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

The idea underneath: Something spreads across the world when it is useful, cheap
and easy to copy. That is true of yoga, and it is also true of the chilli, of paper and of
the number zero. Nobody forced any of them on anybody. People tried them, found
them good, and passed them on. That is how the web of life grows.

For your discussion: Ask the group the opposite question too — “What is done in
some other country that we have taken up?” You will hear football, badminton,
birthday cake, noodles and momos. The traffic runs both ways.

Write — Page 167
Story 2: Yoga—India's Gift to the World!

WRITE

Q1 Can you name a yoga pose you have tried or seen? What do you think it helps with?

Name one pose you have actually done or watched, and say plainly what it does for the
body or the mind. One pose described honestly is worth more than a list of ten names.
Sample answer: I have tried Vrikshasana, the tree pose. You stand on one leg, put the sole of
the other foot against the inside of your thigh, and join your hands above your head like
branches. The first time I wobbled and fell over at once. After a week I could hold it while
counting to twenty. I think it helps with balance, and it also helps me concentrate, because the
moment my mind wanders I start to tip over.
Poses you may have seen — pick any one

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Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 10 Earth—Our Shared Home AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

POSE WHAT YOU DO WHAT IT HELPS WITH

Tadasana (mountain Stand straight and tall, feet together, Standing straight; makes you
pose) arms stretched up aware of your own posture

Vrikshasana (tree pose) Stand on one leg, the other foot against Balance and concentration
the thigh, hands joined above the head

Bhujangasana (cobra Lie on your front and lift the chest on Loosens a stiff back and opens
pose) your hands, like a snake raising its hood the chest

Sukhasana / Padmasana Sit cross-legged with a straight back and Sitting still without fidgeting; a
(sitting poses) breathe slowly calm mind

Balasana (child's pose) Kneel and fold forward, forehead on the Resting between poses; releases
floor, arms stretched ahead a tight back

Surya Namaskar (salute A set of twelve movements done one Warms up the whole body and
to the sun) after another gets the breathing going

Shavasana (rest pose) Lie flat on your back, eyes shut, and let Rest; slows the heart; is always
every muscle go loose done at the end

Anulom-vilom Breathe in through one nostril, out Calms you down when you are
(breathing) through the other, slowly angry or nervous

Why yoga is not only exercise: In running or cricket you push your body as hard as
you can. In yoga you go slowly, you hold still, and you keep watching your own
breath. So it trains something running does not — the ability to be quiet and steady.
The chapter says yoga was a way to live in harmony with oneself and nature, and
that is what those words mean in practice.

Two safety rules: Do yoga on an empty stomach, and never force a stretch until it
hurts. A pose should feel like a firm pull, never like a tear. If you can, learn from a
teacher for the first few weeks.

Write — Page 168

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Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 10 Earth—Our Shared Home AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Story 3: Chilli—A Spice that Changed our Lives!
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WRITE

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s m would happen if chillies disappeared from our kitchens for a week?
eWhat
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m still be filling and still be healthy — but it
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For one week our food would still be cooked,

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would taste flat, and most of it wouldlalose its red colour. Nobody would fall ill and nobody
would go hungry. We would simply go back to what India did before chilli arrived: use black

m
pepper.
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What would change, day by day:
em.
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.co a g
1. Day 1. The dal, the sabzi and the sambar would taste plain. Everybody would keep saying

a s em
“something is missing”.

a gl2. Day 2. The colour would go. Rajma, chhole, fish curry and most gravies get their red from
chilli. They would look pale brown or yellow.

a s
com agl
3. Day 3. Cooks would start using black pepper, ginger, garlic, mustard and hing more
.
sem
heavily to bring back some heat and sharpness.
4. By mid-week. Pickles, chutneysla
a g and papad would be missing from the thali, because red
chilli is a main ingredient in nearly all of them.

m
5. All week. Dishes that never needed chilli would be completely unaffected — plain rice, curd,
. co
m
milk, all sweets, poha, upma, most breakfast foods and food cooked for a sick person.

o m l a se
6. Outside the house. Chilli farmers and traders would lose a week's earnings, and so would
g them.
.cshops selling chilli powder. That part is not a small matterafor
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Heat in the mouth Black pepper, ginger, mustard, garlic

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Red colour in gravies Tomato, beetroot, or a little turmeric for yellow

Pickles and chutneys Sweet and sour ones — amla, tamarind, mango with jaggery

co m
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The kick in street food More lemon, more black salt, more chaat masala

m l as
.co a g
m The point of this question: Chilli feels utterly Indian — but it has been in our
l a se
ag kitchens only about 400 to 500 years. India cooked without it for thousands of years
.c
and did perfectly well. So the week without chilli is not really about food. It shows
s e m
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how quickly a thing that came from far away can become so much a part of us that

s em
we cannot imagine life before
a
it.

agl

com
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Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 10 Earth—Our Shared Home AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Try it for one meal: Ask at home for one dish to be cooked with black pepper
instead of red chilli, and taste it beside the usual one. Pepper's heat comes later and
stays in the throat; chilli's heat is sharp and quick on the tongue. That difference is
what Indian food tasted like before the Portuguese ships arrived.

Q2 2. Ask your parents and write down the name of any recipe in which they have used
black pepper and not red chillies.

Ask at home first — every family has at least one such dish, usually the one cooked when
somebody is unwell. Then write the name of the dish, who told you, and why pepper is used in
it and not chilli.
Sample answer: My mother makes pepper rasam (milagu rasam) whenever anyone at home
has a cold. She uses black pepper, cumin, garlic and tamarind, and no red chilli at all. She says
pepper warms the chest and is gentler on the stomach than chilli. My grandmother adds a
pinch of black pepper to hot milk with turmeric for the same reason.
Common Indian dishes that use black pepper and not red chilli

DISH WHERE IT IS COMMON WHY PEPPER AND NOT CHILLI

Pepper rasam (milagu Tamil Nadu, and now Made for colds and fevers; pepper warms
rasam) everywhere without burning

Moong dal khichdi for a sick All over India Must be very light on the stomach
person

Kali mirch paneer / pepper North India, Kerala Pepper gives heat without turning the dish
chicken red

Kadha (a hot herbal drink) All over India Pepper with tulsi, ginger, honey for a sore
throat

Haldi doodh with a pinch of All over India A little pepper is added to help the body use
pepper the turmeric

Tomato soup, boiled egg, Everywhere Only salt and pepper are wanted; chilli
fruit chaat would spoil the taste

Upma and curd rice (many South India Green chilli or pepper is used, not red chilli
families) powder

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Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 10 Earth—Our Shared Home AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Why black pepper never disappeared: Pepper is grown in India — mainly in Kerala
and Karnataka — and it was so valuable that traders called it ‘black gold’ and sailed
halfway round the world to buy it. Chilli did not replace it. Chilli took over the
everyday cooking, while pepper kept the jobs it does best: medicine dishes, milk and
soups, and food that must be gentle.

Write down who told you: Put the person's name next to the recipe — “told by my
father”, “told by Kamala aunty”. A recipe with a name attached is a small piece of
family history, not just homework.

Activity 3 — Page 168
Story 3: Chilli—A Spice that Changed our Lives!

ACTIVITY

Q1 1. Using a coloured string, trace the journey of chillies from South America to India
on the globe.

Fix one end of the string on South America and bring it across the Atlantic Ocean to
Portugal, then down round the bottom of Africa and across the Indian Ocean to India's
west coast. When you have finished you will see that the chilli travelled more than half way
round the world.
How to trace it, step by step:

1. Take a bright red piece of wool, about 60 cm long — red, so that it is easy to tell apart from
the bird's string.
2. Find South America on the globe. Fix one end there.
3. Carry the string north-east across the Atlantic Ocean to Portugal, on the western edge of
Europe. This is where the travellers who carried the chilli came from.
4. Now bring it south along the west coast of Africa, right round the southern tip of Africa.
5. Turn north-east across the Indian Ocean and fix the other end on India's west coast.
6. Stand back and look at how much water the string crossed and how little land.

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Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 10 Earth—Our Shared Home AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

STAGE OF THE JOURNEY WHAT IT TELLS YOU

South America → Portugal The chilli first went to Europe. It did not come straight to India

Portugal → round Africa There was no short cut then. Ships had to sail all the way round the
southern tip of Africa

Across the Indian Ocean → India's Ships arrived on the west coast, which is why chilli spread inland from
west coast there

The whole route Almost entirely over water, and it took months. This was 400 to 500
years ago, in sailing ships

Why the route matters: The chilli did not walk to India and it did not blow here on
the wind. People carried it — in a sack, on a wooden ship, for months. That is the
difference between Story 1 and Story 3. The bird travels by itself; the chilli travelled
because human beings moved, traded and settled. Both are journeys, but only one
of them needed a boat.

Keep the strings up: Leave the bird's string and the chilli's string on the globe
together. One comes in from the north, one comes in from the west. When you add
the marigold from Mexico and the cows going out to Brazil, the globe itself becomes
your answer to Activity 5.

Q2 2. Potatoes, tomatoes, peanuts, cashews, and many other foods have similar
stories. They all travelled a long way to reach India and now we enjoy these every
day in our food. Find out and write the story of any one of them.

Pick one, find out three things about it — where it came from, who brought it, and what it
changed — and write a short story in your own words. Below is a full sample for the potato,
and short notes on the other three so you can choose.
Sample answer — The Story of the Potato
The potato did not begin in a field in Punjab or Bihar. It began high up in the cold mountains of
South America, in the lands we now call Peru and Bolivia. Farmers there grew potatoes
thousands of years ago, in hundreds of different colours and shapes — purple, red, yellow and
blue. The potato grew well where hardly anything else would, and it kept whole villages fed.
About five hundred years ago, sailors from Spain and Portugal reached South America and took
the potato back with them across the sea to Europe. At first Europeans did not trust it and
would not eat it. Slowly they discovered that it grew easily, stored well and filled the stomach,

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Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 10 Earth—Our Shared Home AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

and it became one of Europe's most important foods.
Then the Portuguese brought it to the west coast of India, about four hundred years ago. Its
Portuguese name, batata, is still the name we use — batata, aloo. It was planted in the hills first,
where the cool weather suited it, and then it spread across the plains.
Today it is everywhere. There is no samosa without potato, no aloo paratha, no aloo gobi, no
dum aloo, no chaat, no packet of chips. India now grows an enormous quantity of potatoes
every year. And yet, if you had gone into an Indian kitchen five hundred years ago and asked for
aloo, nobody would have known what you meant.
Short notes on the other three

FOOD WHERE IT WHO BROUGHT IT WHAT IT CHANGED IN INDIA
CAME
FROM

Tomato South Portuguese travellers, Before it, we got sourness from tamarind,
America and about 400–500 years amchur, kokum and curd. Now tomato is
Mexico ago in nearly every gravy

Peanut South Portuguese traders Became a big crop in Gujarat, Rajasthan
(groundnut, America and Andhra Pradesh. Gave us groundnut
moongphali) oil, chikki and winter evening snacks

Cashew (kaju) Brazil Portuguese, planted The trees held the loose coastal soil
along the Konkan and together. Gave us kaju katli and a whole
Goa coast industry in Goa, Kerala and Konkan

What all four stories have in common: Every one of them came across the sea
from the Americas, at about the same time, on Portuguese ships. Within a few
generations they had become so ordinary that people forgot they were ever new.
That is how a culture grows — not by keeping everything out, but by taking in what
is useful and making it its own.

How to find out more: Ask the oldest person you know whether their grandparents
ate potatoes and tomatoes daily. Look at old recipes in your family. And check the
name — many of these foods still carry a foreign name inside an Indian word, like
batata, and the name itself is a clue to where the food came from.

Discuss — Page 169

Page 23 of 50

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Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 10 Earth—Our Shared Homel AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Story 4: The Sweet Story of Sugar!
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DISCUSS

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a s eIfmyou could choose one Indian food to share with the world, what would it be?
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Choose one dish and give a reason that ism .
s e about the dish, not just about liking it. A good

a g
reason is: it is easy to make, it is cheap,lait uses things found everywhere, it suits many kinds of
people, and it can be changed to local taste.
Sample answer: I would share khichdi. It is made of rice and dal cooked together in one pot
co m
se
with a little salt and turmeric. It needs one vessel, one fire and about twenty minutes. It costs
m.
o m l a
g of India already makes it
so a baby,.can old person and a sick person can all eat it. And every part
very little. It is complete food — the rice and dal together give the body what it needs. It is soft,

m a
l a se — with vegetables in Gujarat, with ghee and hing in the north, as pongal in the
agsouth. Anyone anywhere could add their own vegetables to it and it would still be khichdi. That
differently

is why I think the whole world would find it useful.
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FOOD YOU MIGHT
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A GOOD REASON TO CHOOSE IT
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CHOOSE
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Khichdi

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One pot, cheap, complete food, gentle on the stomach, easy to change to local
taste
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Idli
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Steamed, so no oil at all; soft and light; keeps well; suits children and old

a s em people

agl Dal and roti The everyday meal of crores of Indians; simple, filling and balanced

se m
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Mango India grows hundreds of kinds; sweet, juicy and loved at first taste by

m
ase
everyone

Millets (bajra, ragi, jowar) agl Need very little water, grow in dry land, and are very good for health
Masala chai
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Warm, cheap, shared with guests — it carries the Indian habit of welcoming

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Curd (dahi)
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Made at home from milk with no machine; cools the body; good for the

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stomach

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What makes a food travel: Look at the foods that have actually travelled in this

m . co
chapter — sugar, rice, mangoes, bananas, chilli, potato. Every one of them is cheap,
agl
l a se
easy to grow or make, and useful to ordinary people. Fancy dishes rarely travel
ag travel round the world.
far. Simple, useful ones

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Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 10 Earth—Our Shared Home AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

In the discussion: Do not let the group settle for “because it is tasty”. Push each
person to add a second reason — who could eat it, what it costs, how hard it is to
make. That turns a favourite into an argument.

Q2 2. What kind of new food items do you think will travel in the future?

The foods most likely to travel next are the ones that are healthy, that need little water to
grow, and that keep well while being carried a long way. That is the same test that sugar,
rice and chilli passed in their own time.
Sample answer: I think millets will travel most — bajra, ragi and jowar. They grow in dry land
with very little water, they are very good for health, and the world is short of both water and
healthy food. I also think ready-made Indian spice mixes and instant idli and dosa batter will
travel, because they let anyone in another country cook Indian food quickly.

LIKELY TO TRAVEL WHY

Millets — bajra, ragi, jowar, sama Grow in dry land with little water and no fuss; rich in iron and fibre;
important as water becomes scarce

Makhana (fox nuts, from Bihar's Light, keeps for months, easy to carry, a healthy snack instead of fried
ponds) chips

Moringa (drumstick leaves, The tree grows almost anywhere; the leaves are extremely nutritious
sahjan) and dry easily into powder

Turmeric in milk and drinks Already being sold abroad as a health drink

Jackfruit Grows on a big tree with no care at all; when raw it can be cooked like
meat, which many people now want

Ready spice mixes, instant Let someone in another country cook an Indian dish without learning
batter, packet chai the whole method

Jaggery instead of white sugar A return to the older Indian product, which people now think is better
than refined sugar

How to make a sensible guess about the future: Do not guess wildly. Look at what
the world is short of, and what India has plenty of. The world is running short of
clean water and worried about unhealthy food. India has crops that need little water
and are good to eat. Put those two facts together and you have a reasonable
prediction — which is a much better answer than naming a food you happen to like.

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Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 10 Earth—Our Shared Home AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Remember this too: Food is still travelling in the other direction. Momos, noodles,
pizza and chowmein have arrived in Indian towns within your grandparents' lifetime.
Ask them — they will remember when the first such shop opened near them.

Write — Pages 170–171
Story 5: The Mexican Marigold Moves into India!

WRITE

Q1 1. Why do you think both Indian and Mexican cultures use marigolds during their
festivals?

Because in both countries the marigold does the same three jobs: it is the colour of the
sun and of fire, it grows easily and blooms in huge numbers just at festival time, and it
holds together well enough to be strung into garlands and scattered on the ground. Two
cultures on opposite sides of the world reached for the same flower for the same practical
reasons.
Look at the reasons one at a time:

1. The colour. Marigold is bright orange and yellow — the colour of the sun, of fire and of a
lamp flame. The chapter says these colours reminded us of warmth, celebration and
spirituality. Those are exactly the feelings a festival is about, in any country.
2. It is easy to grow. The plant is not fussy. It grows in ordinary soil in a pot, a field or a
courtyard, and one plant gives many flowers.
3. It flowers at the right time. In India it is in full bloom around Diwali; in Mexico around the
same weeks, when their festival of remembering the family's ancestors is held. A flower that
blooms out of season is useless for a festival.
4. It lasts after picking. The blooms are tight and firm. They stay fresh for a day or two off the
plant, which is why they can be strung, hung on a door, carried in a procession and offered.
5. It is cheap. A poor family and a rich family can both decorate with it. A festival flower has to
be one that everybody can afford.
6. Its smell. The strong, sharp scent is unmistakable, and in both countries that smell has
come to mean ‘today is a special day’.

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Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 10 Earth—Our Shared Home AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

IN INDIA IN MEXICO

Where you Temples, homes, weddings, doorways, Festival decorations, especially the festival
see it garlands, Diwali when families remember those who have died

How it is used Strung into garlands, hung over doors, Scattered as petals to make a path, and
scattered in rangoli, offered in worship heaped on decorations

What the Warmth, celebration, spirituality Warmth and welcome — the bright colour is
colour means meant to guide and welcome

Where it Fields, pots and courtyards all over India Its original home — the marigold is from
grows Mexico

The interesting part of this story: India did not borrow the idea of using flowers
from Mexico. India had been offering flowers for thousands of years already. What
came from Mexico was one particular flower — and it fitted our festivals so perfectly
that within a few hundred years people forgot it had ever come from anywhere else.
When something from outside answers a need that was already there, it stops
feeling foreign very quickly.

Find out at home: Ask which flowers were used for worship in your family before
marigold became so common. You will hear names like champa, chameli, kaner,
harsingar, lotus and hibiscus — all Indian flowers, still used today alongside the
marigold from Mexico.

Q2 2. Why do you think people in different countries include flowers in their
celebrations?

Because flowers are the one beautiful thing that every country has, that costs almost
nothing, and that everybody instantly understands. You do not need a common language to
know that being given a flower means somebody is pleased to see you.
Six reasons, and each one holds in every country:

1. They are beautiful and they smell good. A room with flowers in it looks and smells
different from an ordinary room, and that difference is what a festival needs.
2. Nature gives them free. A flower costs a poor family very little, or nothing at all if it grows
in the courtyard. A celebration that only the rich could decorate for would not be a real
celebration.

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Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 10 Earth—Our Shared Home AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

3. They are alive and fresh. Flowers stand for new life, new beginnings and good wishes — a
new year, a wedding, a birth, a harvest.
4. They do not last. A flower fades in a day or two. That is not a fault; it is the point. Giving
something that will not last says, “today is special, and I am spending something on it”.
5. They can be used in a hundred ways. Strung into a garland, worn in the hair, floated on
water, scattered on a path, laid on a stone, made into a rangoli.
6. Every place has its own flowers. Marigold and jasmine in India, cherry blossom in Japan,
roses in many countries, orchids in the north-east. So every culture could build its festivals
around whatever grew nearby.

The bigger idea, and the one this chapter is about: Human beings in very distant
lands, who had never met and could not have spoken to one another, all arrived at
the same custom on their own. That tells us something important — people
everywhere are far more alike than they are different. We celebrate at different
times, in different languages, wearing different clothes, and we all reach for flowers.

A small class activity: Ask everybody to name the flower used most in their own
family's celebrations. Write the list on the board. Then find out which of those
flowers are originally from India and which came from somewhere else. Almost
every list will have at least one traveller on it.

Write — Page 171
Story 6: The Cows that Went to Brazil!

WRITE

Q1 What does this story tell us about animals moving from one place to another?

It tells us that animals do not only travel by themselves — people carry them too — and
that an animal taken to a new land can settle down, do well, and become deeply
important to the people there. Indian cows went to Brazil on ships, and today more than
three-fourths of Brazil's milk comes from three Indian breeds: Gir, Kankrej and Ongole.
Five things the story teaches:

1. Some journeys are made by animals; some are made for them. The rosy starling in Story
1 flew here on its own. These cows were taken by Portuguese traders.
2. An animal settles where the weather suits it. These cows were strong, gave good milk
and did not mind the weather in Brazil — that is the whole reason they succeeded. Brazil,
like much of India, is hot. An animal from a cold country would not have managed.

Page 28 of 50

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Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 10 Earth—Our Shared Home AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

3. A newcomer can become the most important animal in the country. Today Brazil's milk
co m
se
depends mostly on these three Indian breeds. Their pictures are found even on Brazilian
m.
o m g l a
.c
stamps and coins — that is how a country honours something it values.

m stay linked long afterwards. Every glass of milkadrunk in Brazil is a
selink back to Gujarat, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh, where these breeds come from.
4. The two countries
l a
ag
quiet
5. It shows us the worth of what we have. Indian breeds turned out to be world-class. That is

m
a strong reason to look after them properly at home instead of letting old breeds die out.
. co ag
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eWHY IT DID WELL IN BRAZIL
BREED HOME IN INDIA
g l as
Gir Gujarat (the Gir region)
a Gives plenty of milk and stands heat well

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Kankrej Gujarat and Rajasthan
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Strong and hardy; good for both milk and heavy work

m l as
Ongole
m .co Andhra Pradesh a g
Large and powerful; handles hot, humid weather easily

l a se
ag One honest word of caution: Moving animals is not always a happy story. If a new

m
animal has no enemies in its new home, its numbers can grow out of control and it
a s
m .co
can crowd out the animals and plants that were already there. The cows in Brazil agl
l a se
were taken to farms and looked after by people, so they did no such harm. But
a g
whenever a living thing is moved to a new land, it has to be done thoughtfully —
that is a real lesson too, and a ten-year-old is quite capable of holding both halves of
co m
it.
m .
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.co a g l
s e m at the picture on page 171: All three cows in it have the tall hump on the
Look

agla shoulders and the loose fold of skin hanging under the neck. Those two features
m
help the animal lose heat, which is exactly why Indian cattle can live comfortably in

a se
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hot countries. The picture is showing you the reason the story happened.

m . a
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Activity 4 — Page 172
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Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 10 Earth—Our Shared Home AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Story 6: The Cows that Went to Brazil!

ACTIVITY

Q1 1. With help of your teacher or an elder find out the names of at least 5 different
breeds of cows.

Five Indian cow breeds are: Gir, Sahiwal, Red Sindhi, Tharparkar and Kankrej. India has
dozens more — ask an elder or a person who keeps cattle, because they will name the breeds of
your district, which is what the activity really wants.
How to find out:

1. Ask someone who keeps cows in your village or neighbourhood, or the person who delivers
milk.
2. Ask three questions: “What breed is this cow?”, “Where does this breed come from?”, “What is
it good at?”
3. If there is a veterinary hospital or a dairy near you, ask there too.
4. Write the answers in a table like the one below, and add your own district's breed at the
bottom.

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Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 10 Earth—Our Shared Home AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

BREED HOME STATE KNOWN FOR

Gir Gujarat A lot of milk; a broad, curved forehead and long drooping
ears. One of the three breeds that went to Brazil

Sahiwal Punjab region Reddish-brown; one of India's best milk breeds; gentle to
handle

Red Sindhi Now kept across north and Deep red colour; good milk even in hot places
south India

Tharparkar Rajasthan White or grey; lives on very little water and fodder in dry
country

Kankrej Gujarat and Rajasthan Strong; used both for milk and for pulling a plough or cart.
Also went to Brazil

Ongole Andhra Pradesh Very large and powerful. The third of the Brazil breeds

Hallikar Karnataka Famous for its strength in pulling carts

Vechur Kerala One of the smallest cattle in the world — an adult is only about
waist high

Rathi Rajasthan Brown with white patches; a good milk breed of the desert
districts

Deoni Maharashtra Black and white; steady milk and strong bullocks

Why there are so many breeds: India is huge, and the weather in one part is
nothing like the weather in another. A cow that thrives in the wet coast of Kerala
would suffer in the dry heat of the Thar Desert. Over hundreds of years, farmers in
each region kept the animals that did best there — and that is how each region
ended up with its own breed. Each breed is a record of the place it comes from.

One thing people often mix up: Murrah is a famous Indian breed, but it is a breed
of buffalo, not of cow. Most of the milk drunk in India actually comes from
buffaloes. Ask which animal your milk comes from — the answer surprises many
children.

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Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 10 Earth—Our Shared Home AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Q2 2. Make a list of a few things in your house or school that may have come from
another part of the world. Find out where they originally came from. (Fill the table
— Items: Clothing, Food, Sports, Musical instruments, Tree; columns: Names, Origin
from. The first row is filled: Clothing — Jeans — America.)

Fill each row with one thing you actually have at home or in school, and write where it
first came from. The first row is already done for you in the book: Clothing — Jeans —
America. Here is the whole table filled in as a sample.

ITEMS NAMES ORIGIN HOW YOU CAN CHECK
FROM

Clothing Jeans America Given in the book

Food Potato (aloo) South Ask an elder whether their grandparents ate potato
America daily. Chilli, tomato, cashew and groundnut have the
same story

Sports Football England Cricket also came from England; basketball from
America; volleyball from America

Musical Harmonium France It came to India about two hundred years ago and
instruments (Europe) was changed here to be played sitting on the floor.
Guitar — Spain; violin — Italy; keyboard — Japan

Tree Eucalyptus Australia Look for its tall straight trunk and peeling bark by
(safeda) the roadside. Gulmohar — Madagascar; rubber tree
— Brazil; cashew tree — Brazil

More things you could put in your own table

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Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 10 Earth—Our Shared Home AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

THING IN YOUR HOUSE WHERE IT FIRST CAME FROM
OR SCHOOL

Paper in your notebook China. Before paper reached India, people wrote on palm leaves and bark

Tea leaves The tea plant grows wild in Assam, but drinking tea every day became an
Indian habit only about a hundred years ago

Marigold in the puja thali Mexico

Dates and lemons Brought by Arab traders, who took back Indian rice and cloth

Papaya, guava, pineapple, Central and South America
chikoo

Coffee Africa, and it reached India through Arab lands

Badminton, table tennis, Chess began in India and went out; badminton grew from an Indian game
chess and came back with new rules

What you notice while filling this table: Almost nothing in an ordinary Indian
house is purely from one place. The notebook is a Chinese idea, the potato in the
sabzi is South American, the marigold on the door is Mexican, the harmonium in the
bhajan is French — and the yoga on the roof, the sugar in the tea and the rice on the
plate all went out from here. Your house is not a box. It is a meeting point.

Do it honestly: Write only what you can actually see at home or in school. If your
family has no jeans, put a different piece of clothing and find out about that instead.
The value of this activity lies in checking real things, not in copying a list.

Activity 5 — Page 173

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Web of Life
co m
e m.
m as
ACTIVITY

.co a g l
s m
eInterview
gl a1. a grandparent or neighbour: Ask them about a food item, song, or
a
Q1
custom that was not there in their childhood but is common today. Find out where
it came from.

co m
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l a se
agthat simply did not exist when they were your age.
Ask an elder what is normal today
Almost every elder will name at least three things at once, and each one has come from

co m
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somewhere.

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How to do the interview properly:
l a se
g
.c one person over sixty — a grandparent, a neighbour, a shopkeeper,
a
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1. Choose a teacher who

glahas retired.
a 2. Fix a time when they are free, and take a notebook and a pen. Tell them why you have come.
m a s
.co agl
3. Ask these questions, one at a time, and let them talk: “What did you eat as a child that we

se m
do not eat now?” · “What do we eat now that you had never even heard of?” · “Which

l a
songs did you sing at weddings?” · “What is done at festivals now that was not done
g
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then?” · “When did the first television, telephone, gas stove or scooter come to your
street?”

. com
4. Write down their exact words wherever you can, not your own summary of them.

m a s
5. At the end ask, “Where do you think it came from?” — and then find emout for yourself as
. co a gl
em
well.

l a s6. Write the person's name and age at the top of the page.

ag Sample answer
se m
Interview with my grandmother, Kamla Devi, age 72.
com g l a
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She told me that when she was a girl there were no noodles, no momos, no pizza and no

g l as were not celebrated with a cake and candles at all — the
birthday cake in their village. Birthdays
mother made kheer or halwa a and the child touched the elders' feet. The cake and the ‘Happy
Birthday’ song came much later, from Europe and America, first to the cities and then to the

co m
villages, through films and television.
m .
o m l a se
She also said that tea was not drunk every day in her childhood. It was made only when a guest
g the change came when tea
.c Now everybody drinks it two or three times a day. She asaid
m
se began to be sold in packets and advertised everywhere.
came.

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.
The third thing she mentioned was the gas stove. She cooked on a chulha with wood and cow-

s e m
m a
dung cakes, and her eyes stung with smoke every day. The gas cylinder came to their house
when she was already a mother.
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Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 10 Earth—Our Shared Home AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

WHAT THE ELDER MAY NAME WHERE IT CAME FROM

Noodles, chowmein, momos China, Tibet and Nepal — they came to Indian towns through hill
towns and street carts

Pizza, burger, cake, cold drinks Europe and America, through cities, films and television

Birthday cake and the ‘Happy Birthday’ A European and American custom; earlier Indian birthdays meant
song sweets and elders' blessings

Tea drunk several times a day The plant grows in Assam, but the daily habit spread across India
only in the last hundred years

Ready-made clothes, jeans, school Earlier almost everything was stitched by the local tailor
shoes

Plastic buckets, mugs and bottles They replaced brass, copper and earthen pots within one lifetime

Television, mobile phone, film songs at Machines from abroad; the wedding songs that grandmothers sang
weddings are now rarely heard

Pav bhaji, idli, dhokla eaten far from These travelled within India, from one state to another
where they began

Why an elder is the right person to ask: A book tells you that things change. A
grandmother tells you how fast. Everything on that list arrived inside one person's
lifetime — one single life, not a hundred. Change is not something that only
happened long ago in history. It is happening around you now, and one day you will
be the elder being interviewed.

Say thank you, and go back: Read your notes aloud to them when you have
finished writing, and check that you have not got anything wrong. They will usually
remember two more things the moment they hear it read back.

Q2 2. From the stories you have read: List different things that came to India from
other countries and those that travelled from India to the world. Then, using two
different coloured strings, trace their journeys on a map.

Make two lists — things that came in, and things that went out — then use one colour of
string for everything coming in and a different colour for everything going out. When the
map is finished, India will be a knot with strings running out in every direction.

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Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 10 Earth—Our Shared Home AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

How to make the map:

1. Put up a world map, or draw a rough one on chart paper. It does not have to be perfect.
2. Pin a small card marked INDIA on the map.
3. Take red string for things that came to India and green string for things that went out
from India.
4. For each item, pin one end of the string on the country it is connected with and the other
end on India.
5. Stick a tiny label on every string — one word is enough: chilli, marigold, yoga, sugar.
6. Stand back and count. Which colour has more strings? Ask the class why they think so.

CAME TO FROM WHERE WENT FROM INDIA TO WHERE
INDIA (RED TO THE WORLD
STRING) (GREEN STRING)

Chilli South America, Yoga Almost every country in
brought by the world
Portuguese travellers

Potato, tomato, South America and Sugar and the method of Spread through trade and
peanut, cashew, Mexico making jaggery travel
maize

Marigold Mexico Rice, mangoes and bananas Many lands

Rosy starlings, Southern Russia and Gir, Kankrej and Ongole Brazil
every winter Mongolia cows

Paper China Pepper and cardamom — Many countries
traders called them ‘black
gold’

Dates and lemons Brought by Arab Rice and cloth, taken back The Arab lands
traders by those same Arab traders

Jeans America Indigo dye — the deep blue Africa and Europe
once used only by royalty

Football, cricket, England and Europe Zero — the idea of The whole world
the harmonium ‘nothing’ that improved
mathematics everywhere

Coffee Africa, through Arab Chess, and snakes and The whole world
lands ladders

Eucalyptus and Australia and Ayurveda, and ideas of four Many lands; Angkor Wat in
gulmohar trees Madagascar religions born here Cambodia is one sign of
how far they went

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Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 10 Earth—Our Shared Home AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Chilli, potato, tomato Yoga

Marigold — Mexico Sugar and jaggery

Paper — China Rice, mango, banana
INDIA
Dates, lemons — Arab lands a meeting point Pepper, cardamom, indigo

Rosy starlings — Russia Gir, Kankrej, Ongole — Brazil

Jeans, football — Zero, chess, Ayurveda
America,
England
Red = came in · Green = went out. Both lists are long.

The same map you will make with two coloured strings — things arriving on one side, things leaving
on the other.

What the finished map shows: The strings run in both directions, and both
bunches are thick. India is not only a place that received things, and not only a place
that gave things away. It is a crossing point — a country that took in what was useful
and sent out what it had. Every culture in the world would look like this if you made
the same map for it. That is what the chapter calls the web of life.

Keep the map up on the wall: Leave a few empty pins. Whenever anybody in the
class discovers one more traveller — a fruit, a game, a word, an instrument — let
them add a string. By the end of the year the map will be full.

Write — Page 176

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Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 10 Earth—Our Shared Home AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

One Earth, One Family!

WRITE

Q1 1. What does ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam’ teach us?

It teaches us that the whole world is one family. Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam is an old saying
from ancient India, and it means ‘the world is one family’. Not one country, not one village —
the world.
Four things it teaches, in order:

1. Everyone belongs. All people, animals, trees, rivers, and even the air and the sky are part of
this family. Not just human beings, and not just the people who live near you.
2. We depend on each other. We live together and we need one another. The tree gives you
air, the river gives you water, the farmer grows your food, the bird protects the farmer's crop.
3. So we should behave like family. When you see the world as one family you learn to live
with respect, care and love — for one another and for the Earth that supports us all.
4. Caring for the Earth is caring for each other. If you dirty the river, you have not harmed
the river; you have harmed everyone downstream who drinks from it. The two things are the
same thing.

People

Sky Animals

EARTH
one home

Air Trees

Rivers

The family named in the chapter: people, animals, trees, rivers, air and sky — all sharing one home.

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co m
m.
Why it is said as family and not as rules: Nobody has to be ordered to look after

m l a se
their own little brother. You do it because he is yours. The saying works the same
o g family, being
.cyou truly see a stranger, or a tree, or a river as part ofayour
m
way. Once

l a stoe it stops feeling like a duty and starts feeling ordinary. That is a much stronger
g than a rule.
kind
athing
o m
e
. c
m of Environment, Forest and Climate ag
s
Did you know? The logo of the Ministry
Change shows the same idea. It lstands
g a for the balance between nature and human
a
life, and it carries the line “Nature Protects if She is Protected”. Look at it on page 175
— the bird, the leaf and the water are drawn as one circle.
co m
em.
m l as
.co a g
a s em
l
2. Write the meaning of ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam’ in your own words.
g
Q2
a
m a s
cobook's agl

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In your own words means: do not copy the line. Say it the way you would say it to a

g l
younger child. Here are several waysasof saying the same thing — write the one that sounds like
you, or make your own. a
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Sample answers

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“The whole world is one big family, and everybody in it — people, animals, trees and rivers —
m l
.co g
is a relative of mine.”

em a
s
“There is really only one family on Earth, and all of us are in it. The borders are only lines on a
a
l map.”
ag
m
“Everyone on this planet is my own, so I should treat a stranger the way I treat my cousin.”

a se
com l
“The Earth is one house. All of us live in different rooms of the same house, so we must keep
. a g
it clean together.”
e m
g l as trees, the birds, the rivers and every person are part of one
“No one here is an outsider. The
family with me.” a
om
Two rules for writing it in your own words:
. c
1. Use your everyday words. If you would say ‘apna’, ‘ghar’ or ‘sab log’mwhen talking to a friend,
o m l a se
m .cAdd one example from your own life. That is what makes ait gyours: “…which is why my mother
use words like that.

a se
agl
2.
gives water to the sparrows in summer, even though they are not ours.”
.c
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Why the book asks the same question twice: Question 1 asked what the saying
teaches. Question 2 asks what it means to you. You can repeat a sentence you have
learnt without understanding it at all — but the moment you have to say it in your
own words, you find out whether you really understood. That is why teachers ask
this, and it is a good test to use on yourself.

Where it comes from: The saying is in Sanskrit. Vasudha means the Earth, eva
means ‘indeed’, and kutumbakam means family. Word for word: “The Earth itself is
the family.”

Q3 3. How can we live like one big family, even when we are different?

By treating our differences as ordinary rather than as a problem — and by doing small,
everyday things that show respect and care. Families are not made of people who are alike.
Your own family has an old grandfather, a baby, a farmer and a student in it, and it still works.
Things you can actually do — this week, in your own school and street:

1. Learn a few words of a classmate's language. Learn how to say ‘thank you’ and ‘how are
you’ in it. Nothing makes a person feel more welcome.
2. Never laugh at anyone's food, clothes, accent or name. This is the single most useful rule
on the whole list.
3. Sit with someone new. Change your seat once a week. Talk to the child everyone leaves out.
4. Share. Share your tiffin, your colour pencils, your umbrella. Sharing is how a group of
children becomes a class.
5. Mix the teams. When you pick teams for a game, do not pick only your own friends. Make
sure the child who is picked last is picked earlier next time.
6. Listen before you argue. When there is a fight, let each side speak fully once, without being
interrupted. Most quarrels shrink at that point.
7. Take part in festivals that are not yours. Eat the food, learn what it is for, and wish people.
Curiosity is a form of respect.
8. Look after the things everybody uses. The classroom, the tap, the toilet, the playground,
the bus stop. Keeping a shared place clean is a way of saying ‘these people are mine’.
9. Include animals and plants. Keep a bowl of water out in summer. Do not break branches.
They are part of the family too, as the chapter says.
10. Help without being asked. Carry a heavy bag, pick up something that fell, explain a sum to
someone who did not follow.

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Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 10 Earth—Our Shared Home AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

DIFFERENCE WHAT LIVING LIKE A FAMILY LOOKS LIKE

Different languages Learn a few words of each other's language instead of making fun of the
accent

Different food Try what your friend brought; do not say ‘chhi’ about anybody's tiffin

Different festivals Wish your friend on their festival and ask what it celebrates

Different games and skills Let each person teach the class the game they are best at

Different abilities Change the rules a little so that everybody can play, instead of leaving
someone out

Different amounts of money at Never compare shoes, bags or phones; play games that need nothing to
home buy

Why differences are useful and not a nuisance: Look back at the whole chapter.
Everything good in it came from somewhere being different — chilli from South
America, marigold from Mexico, paper from China, yoga going out from India. If
every place had been the same, there would have been nothing to give and nothing
to receive. Differences are exactly what makes sharing possible.

One line to remember: The world will not become one family because of a big
announcement. It becomes one family in small pieces — one classroom, one street,
one bus, one shared tiffin at a time.

Let us reflect — Page 176
The closing questions of the chapter and of the book

LET US REFLECT

Q1 1. Pick one of the ideas. Write a short story about how this idea might have
travelled from one place to another long ago. Think about how it helped people
change their lives or the way they think.

Choose one idea from the chapter, imagine one person carrying it, and follow that person
on the journey. A story needs a person, a place and a change — not a list of facts.
What your story must contain:

1. The idea you have chosen, named in the first few lines.

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Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 10 Earth—Our Shared Home AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

2. A person who carries it — a sailor, a trader, a cook, a teacher, a farmer.
3. The journey — how far, how long, and how hard it was.
4. The moment somebody in the new land tries it for the first time.
5. The change — what people did differently afterwards. This is the part the question really
asks for, so do not leave it out.

Sample answer — The Little Red Fire
Diogo was a cook on a Portuguese ship, and he was tired of the sea. For four months the ship
had crossed water, then more water. Now, at last, the low green coast of India was in front of
them and the air smelt of wet earth and smoke.
In his pocket Diogo carried a small cloth bag. In it were dried red pods he had picked up in a
market in South America, on the other side of the world. The people there had crushed them
into their food and it had set his mouth on fire. He had laughed and coughed and asked for
more.
On the shore he found a cook called Meenakshi grinding black pepper on a stone. She was
making a pot of curry for the traders. Diogo pointed at his little bag and then at her pot. She
frowned. She broke one pod, touched a seed to her tongue — and her eyes went wide.
She used half a pod in the pot that day. The traders emptied it. The next week she planted four
seeds behind her kitchen, in the loose red soil at the edge of the coconut trees. It rained. The
plants grew fast; they liked this land better than they had liked their own.
Her neighbour asked for seeds. Her neighbour's cousin, who was going inland, carried a
handful in a knot at the end of his dhoti. Within a hundred years the little red fire had reached
every kitchen from the coast to the mountains — Andhra, Kashmir, Nagaland, Rajasthan.
And it changed things. Food could now be made hot cheaply, because chilli grew in every
backyard, while pepper had to be bought. Pickles kept longer. Whole dishes were invented that
could not have existed before. Today a child in India tastes chilli in almost the first solid food she
is given — and not one person in a thousand knows that it sailed here in a Portuguese sailor's
pocket.
Other ideas you could write about instead

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Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 10 Earth—Our Shared Home AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

IDEA WHICH WAY IT THE CHANGE IT BROUGHT
TRAVELLED

Yoga Out of India, with travellers, People in other countries found a way to keep the body
scholars and teachers healthy and the mind calm without machines or money

Sugar and Out of India, through trade Before this, the world sweetened food with honey. Sweets,
jaggery and travel festivals and whole trades grew around sugar

Zero Out of India, to the whole The idea of ‘nothing’ as a number made big calculations
world possible everywhere

Paper Into India, from China Before it we wrote on palm leaves and bark. Paper made
through trade books and schools far easier

The marigold Into India, from Mexico It became the flower of our temples, weddings and Diwali
within a few hundred years

Why writing it as a story is the right way to end the book: A list of facts tells you
that things travelled. A story makes you feel that a real person carried them —
someone who was tired, hungry and a long way from home, and who had no idea
that what was in his pocket would change millions of kitchens. History is not made
only by kings. It is made by cooks, sailors, farmers and traders.

Tip for writing: Give your character a name in the very first line. The moment the
person has a name, the writing becomes easier and the reader begins to care.

Q2 2. Write one way you can care for the Earth.

One clear way: “I will close the tap while I brush my teeth and while I soap my hands.” Say
it as one sentence, in the first person, about something you will really do — not “we should save
water”, but “I will do this”.
A choice of real actions — pick one and write it your way

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co m
m.
AREA ONE THING YOU CAN ACTUALLY WHAT IT SAVES

as e
com
DO

. a g l
m
ase
Water Close the tap while brushing and soaping; A running tap can waste several litres in

agl
report a leaking tap in school the same day a minute. A dripping tap wastes water all
night, every night

. com ag
Electricity Switch off the fan and light of an empty Less coal burnt to make that electricity,

s em
room. Be the last one out of the classroom and a smaller bill at home

a
agl
who checks

Plastic Carry a cloth bag and a steel bottle. Refuse A cloth bag used for a year replaces a
the shop's plastic bag few hundred plastic bags
co m
se m.
m l a
.co dry waste (paper, plastic, metal). Never burn
Waste Wet waste becomes compost for the

ag burning plastic poisons
Keep two bins — wet waste (food, leaves) and

m
school garden;

l a se plastic or leaves the air you breathe
g
a Trees Plant one sapling and water it for two whole A tree that survives gives shade, holds

a s
com agl
years — that second part is the real work soil and feeds birds for fifty years

m .
ase
Food Take only as much on your plate as you will Wasted food wastes the water, the soil

agl
finish and the farmer's whole year of work

m
Travel Walk or cycle to school if it is near; share a Less smoke in your own street, and
rickshaw or take the bus if it is far
.
quieter air to breathe
co
se m
com l a
g of the year
. hottestaweeks
Animals and Keep a shallow bowl of water on the roof or Sparrows, squirrels and crows in the

m
ase
birds windowsill in summer and change it daily

agl Paper Use both sides of every page. Make rough Paper comes from trees and takes a
notebooks out of leftover pages great deal of water to make
se m
com g l a
m . a
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as home four or five plastic bags from the market every week,
Sample answer: One way I can care for the Earth is by carrying a cloth bag and a steel bottle

g l
a bottles on school trips. Since I started carrying my own bag
every day. My family used to bring
and I used to buy water in plastic

m
and bottle, we hardly bring any plastic home. I have also made one cloth bag for my

. co
m
grandmother, so she does not take the shopkeeper's plastic bag either.

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Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 10 Earth—Our Shared Home AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Being honest about how much this matters — because you deserve a straight
answer. Your actions are real and they add up: a tap closed while brushing really
does save litres, and a bag used all year really does replace hundreds of plastic bags.
Two more things make them count for even more — they become habits you will
keep as an adult, and other people copy them, so one child's cloth bag often
becomes a family's cloth bag. But it is also true that the biggest problems — dirty air
over cities, plastic in the sea, the Earth growing warmer — are far too large for
children to fix on their own. They also need governments, factories, farms and whole
countries to change how they work. That is not your fault, and it is not your job
alone. Your job is to do your own part properly, and to ask questions out loud when
grown-ups do not do theirs. Both of those are worth doing, and neither of them is
something to feel guilty about.

Make it easy to keep: Do not promise ten things. Choose one and do it for thirty
days, until it stops feeling like an effort. Then add the next one. That is how habits
are actually built — one at a time, not all at once.

Q3 3. Identify of an item that can travel from India to other parts of the world and
write about it.

Choose one Indian thing, and then answer four questions about it: what it is, where in
India it comes from, why other countries would want it, and what it would change for
them. That turns a name into a real answer.
Sample answer — Millets (bajra, jowar and ragi)
The item I would send from India to the world is millets — bajra, jowar and ragi. These are old
Indian grains. They have been grown in Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Karnataka and many other dry
parts of India for thousands of years, long before wheat and rice became the main foods
everywhere.
Millets have one quality the world badly needs: they grow with very little water. Rice needs a
field standing in water. Bajra grows in sandy soil in a place where it rains only a few times a year.
Many countries are now short of water, and their summers are getting hotter. A grain that needs
so little water is exactly what such places need.
They are also very good for health. Ragi has a lot of calcium, which is good for bones. Bajra and
jowar have plenty of iron and fibre. They fill you for a long time. In a world where many people
fall ill from eating too much refined food, this matters.

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Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 10 Earth—Our Shared Home AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Millets would travel the way sugar travelled from India long ago — through trade, and through
people cooking them and others liking the taste. Farmers in dry countries would grow them and
use less water. Families would get a cheaper, healthier grain. And Indian farmers who grow
millets would earn more from them, so those old seeds would be looked after instead of being
forgotten.
Other things you could write about

ITEM WHERE IN INDIA WHY THE WORLD WOULD WANT
IT

Mango Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Maharashtra, India grows hundreds of kinds. It is loved
Andhra Pradesh and many more at the very first taste, everywhere

Basmati rice Punjab, Haryana, Uttarakhand Long grains and a scent no other rice has

Turmeric Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra Colours food, and is used in Indian homes
as a medicine for wounds and colds

Khadi and Woven in villages all over India Made by hand, uses very little machinery
handloom cloth and electricity, and gives work to weavers

Channapatna Karnataka Made of wood with safe vegetable colours
wooden toys instead of plastic

Yoga and Ayurveda All over India They have already travelled — and are
still spreading

Kabaddi and kho- Village grounds all over India Need no equipment at all — only a flat
kho piece of ground and players

What decides whether a thing will really travel: Look again at everything that has
travelled in this chapter — sugar, rice, mangoes, spices, cows, yoga, zero. Each one
was useful, possible to carry or copy, and something the other place did not
already have. Test your chosen item against those three. If it passes all three, your
answer is a good one.

A useful thing to know: Some Indian products carry a special tag saying which
place they come from — Darjeeling tea, Kanchipuram silk, Nagpur oranges, Mysore
silk. The tag means no one else may sell their goods under that name. It is one way a
place protects something it has made well for a very long time.

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Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 10 Earth—Our Shared Home AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Chapter at a glance
From space, the Earth has no lines on it. Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla, the first
Indian to reach the International Space Station, said that when he looked at the Earth from
outside, it looked completely one — no border, no state, no country was visible. Wing
Commander Rakesh Sharma, the first Indian to see the Earth from space, was asked how
India looked from up there. He replied, “Saare Jahaan Se Achcha” — the best in the entire
world. From that height you cannot even see your own city or village. You see only the big
shapes of land and the blue of the sea. That is why the Earth is called the blue planet.
You have an address, and its last line is the same for everybody. Your address goes from
small to big — your house, your street, your village or town, your district, your state, your
country. The line after that is Planet: Earth, and every child in every country writes the
same word there. DIGIPIN is a newer idea: it gives every small place in India its own 10-
character digital code, like a name tag for your home or school, so a postman, an
ambulance or a delivery person can find you faster.
Nature has no boundaries. Borders are lines that people drew on maps. Air does not stop
at them. Nor do clouds, rain, rivers, seeds, birds, fish or butterflies. The monsoon wind that
waters our fields comes from over the ocean. Dust from a far-off desert reaches our cities.
So the good things of nature are shared — and so is the harm. If we spoil the air or the
water, it does not stay inside one country.
Story 1 — the travelling birds. Rosy starlings fly thousands of kilometres every winter from
the southern part of Russia, Mongolia and nearby countries to India. Here they enjoy the
warm weather and feed on locusts and grasshoppers — the very pests that damage crops.
So the birds get food and the farmers get their fields cleaned. They fly in huge flocks that
twist and turn in the sky like smoke. When animals can move freely and safely across the
world, it shows how deeply nature is joined up.
Story 2 — yoga, India's gift to the world. People in India have practised yoga for more
than 3,000 years, to keep the body healthy and the mind peaceful, and to live in harmony
with oneself and with nature. Travellers, scholars and teachers from India shared it, and
slowly other countries learnt it too. In 2014 the United Nations declared 21 June as the
International Day of Yoga, and millions of people around the world now do yoga together
on that day.
Stories 3 and 4 — chilli came in, sugar went out. Chilli plants grew only in South America.
About 400 to 500 years ago Portuguese travellers brought chillies to India. Before that we
used black pepper to make food hot. Today we cannot imagine our food without chilli.
Sugar went the other way. The method of making jaggery from sugarcane juice was first
discovered in India, and later we found how to make sugar from jaggery. That knowledge
spread out through trade and travel. Rice, mangoes and bananas from India also travelled
to other lands.
Stories 5 and 6 — a flower came, some cows went. The marigold is originally from
Mexico, where it is a special festival flower. It travelled across the world to India, and its
bright orange and yellow now fill our temples, homes, weddings and Diwali. Long ago

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Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 10 Earth—Our Shared Home AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Portuguese traders took some Indian cows to Brazil. They were strong, gave good milk and
did not mind the Brazilian weather. Today more than three-fourths of Brazil's milk comes
from three Indian breeds — Gir, Kankrej and Ongole — and their pictures appear even on
Brazilian stamps and coins.
The Web of Life. These are not really stories about birds, plants and objects. They are
stories about people — journeys, sharing and the mixing of cultures. We may speak
different languages and play different games, but we learn from one another all the time.
The Earth is more than land and water; it is a living web of life in which people, animals,
plants and ideas travel, mix and grow together. Many more things crossed: paper came
from China (before that we wrote on palm leaves and bark), Arab traders brought dates
and lemons and took back Indian rice and cloth, and Indian indigo dyed clothes in Africa
and Europe — that deep blue was once used only by royalty.
One Earth, One Family. India's old saying Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam means ‘the world is
one family’. All people, animals, trees, rivers, and even the air and the sky belong to this
family. We live together, we depend on each other, and we share one home. Earth is the only
planet we know that has life, and for thousands of years it has supported people, animals
and plants. It needs care too — and when we care for the Earth we are caring for each other.
The logo of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change carries the line
“Nature Protects if She is Protected”, which says the same thing in seven words.
India has given the world a great deal, quietly. Zero was first written down here, and
that idea of ‘nothing’ helped people everywhere do mathematics better. Ayurveda, one of
the oldest forms of medicine, was developed in India over 3,000 years ago. The game of
chess and snakes and ladders began here. Spices like pepper and cardamom went out to
many countries, and traders called them ‘black gold’. India is the birthplace of four major
world religions — Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism — and Angkor Wat in
Cambodia, the largest temple in the world, shows how far Indian ideas travelled.
Meanwhile our own wetlands hold treasures like the fishing cat, which has partly webbed
paws and dives for fish.

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a g l Page 49 of 50

Class 5 The World Around Us Chapter 10 Earth—Our Shared Home AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

WORD WHAT IT MEANS WHERE IT AN EVERYDAY EXAMPLE
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Vasudhaiva An old Indian saying meaning ‘the world One Earth, One Treating a stranger the way
Kutumbakam is one family’ Family!, page 173 you treat a cousin

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