The Class 5 Environmental Studies book Looking Around has 22 chapters spread over 204 pages, and the official PDF of every chapter is on this page. Each file is NCERT’s own edition, hosted on ncert.nic.in, so you can open the exact chapter you need instead of scrolling through the whole book.
What a chapter list alone cannot tell you is which chapter answers the question you were asked, or how much work each chapter expects. So this page also breaks the book down chapter by chapter: the printed page range of every chapter, its hands-on activity load, which chapters read like stories, and which chapters to revise together.
Download the official Looking Around PDFs chapter by chapter
Every file in the table below is NCERT’s own PDF, hosted on ncert.nic.in — the same source as the official Chapter 1 PDF (Super Senses) on ncert.nic.in — so what you open is the official edition rather than a scanned or third-party copy.
Treat the table as a chapter-to-PDF lookup: pick the chapter, open its file, and read only what you need.
| Ch. | Chapter | Pages | Official PDF |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Super Senses | 14 | |
| 2 | A Snake Charmer's Story | 7 | |
| 3 | From Tasting to Digesting | 13 | |
| 4 | Mangoes Round the Year | 7 | |
| 5 | Seeds and Seeds | 9 | |
| 6 | Every Drop Counts | 9 | |
| 7 | Experiments with Water | 7 | |
| 8 | A Treat for Mosquitoes | 9 | |
| 9 | Up You Go! | 11 | |
| 10 | Walls Tell Stories | 12 | |
| 11 | Sunita in Space | 11 | |
| 12 | What if it Finishes…? | 10 | |
| 13 | A Shelter so High! | 11 | |
| 14 | When the Earth Shook! | 8 | |
| 15 | Blow Hot, Blow Cold | 8 | |
| 16 | Who will do this Work? | 7 | |
| 17 | Across the Wall | 11 | |
| 18 | No Place for Us? | 9 | |
| 19 | A Seed Tells a Farmer’s Story | 8 | |
| 20 | Whose Forests? | 10 | |
| 21 | Like Father, Like Daughter | 8 | |
| 22 | On the Move Again | 5 |
What the Class 5 EVS textbook PDF covers at a glance
Here is the shape of the book before you open it.
- 22 chapters across 204 printed pages.
- 18 hands-on activities spread across the 22 chapters.
- No numbered end-of-chapter exercise blocks — revision works from the in-chapter prompts and the chapter recaps.
- All 22 chapter PDFs verified from the official NCERT source.
Stories and short tasks carry the teaching. A typical chapter opens with a situation — a singer cupping an ear, a dog finding its owner, a bus running out of fuel — asks you to observe something in your own surroundings, and closes with a recap and discussion prompts.
The table below groups the 22 chapters into five thematic stretches so you can plan reading in related clusters. Treat it as a reading map, not the syllabus; the current official syllabus settles what is examinable.
| Stretch | Chapters | Pages | What this stretch reads like |
|---|---|---|---|
| Body, food and plants | 1-5 | 1-50 | Senses, eating and digesting, food that keeps, seeds and sprouting |
| Water, air and health | 6-9 | 51-86 | Water use, float-and-sink experiments, mosquito-borne illness, physical fitness |
| Places, space and shelter | 10-13 | 87-130 | A fort’s engineering, life in space, fuels that run out, homes built for climate |
| Disaster, work and society | 14-18 | 131-173 | Earthquakes and rescue, moving air, dignity of labour, sport, city migration |
| Farming, forests, family and migration | 19-22 | 174-204 | A farmer’s changing costs, forest rights, family traits, moving again |
What each chapter of Looking Around actually teaches
The directory below lists every chapter with the counts read from the book itself. A section is one of NCERT’s numbered headings, an activity is a hands-on task printed in the chapter, and a question is an end-of-chapter exercise block.
Looking Around prints no numbered section headings and no separate question blocks, so the activity count is the useful column here.
| Ch. | Chapter | Sections | Activities | Figures | Questions |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Super Senses | — | 1 | — | — |
| 2 | A Snake Charmer's Story | — | — | — | — |
| 3 | From Tasting to Digesting | — | 1 | — | — |
| 4 | Mangoes Round the Year | — | 1 | — | — |
| 5 | Seeds and Seeds | — | 2 | — | — |
| 6 | Every Drop Counts | — | 1 | — | — |
| 7 | Experiments with Water | — | — | — | — |
| 8 | A Treat for Mosquitoes | — | 3 | — | — |
| 9 | Up You Go! | — | — | — | — |
| 10 | Walls Tell Stories | — | 1 | — | — |
| 11 | Sunita in Space | — | 1 | — | — |
| 12 | What if it Finishes…? | — | 1 | — | — |
| 13 | A Shelter so High! | — | 3 | — | — |
| 14 | When the Earth Shook! | — | — | — | — |
| 15 | Blow Hot, Blow Cold | — | — | — | — |
| 16 | Who will do this Work? | — | — | — | — |
| 17 | Across the Wall | — | 1 | — | — |
| 18 | No Place for Us? | — | — | — | — |
| 19 | A Seed Tells a Farmer’s Story | — | — | — | — |
| 20 | Whose Forests? | — | 1 | — | — |
| 21 | Like Father, Like Daughter | — | 1 | — | — |
| 22 | On the Move Again | — | — | — | — |
Chapter 1: Super Senses (pp. 1-14)
The chapter opens with everyday observations — a singer cupping an ear, a dog finding its owner — and builds the idea that animals and humans use sight, smell, hearing and touch in very different ways.
Chapter 2: A Snake Charmer’s Story (pp. 15-21)
Aryanath’s first-person account of growing up in a snake charmer family leads into the law that bans catching and keeping snakes, and the pull between traditional livelihoods and animal protection.
Chapter 3: From Tasting to Digesting (pp. 22-34)
From Tasting to Digesting follows the path from the taste buds to the stomach, using the story of a window in a man’s stomach, and ends with why balanced food keeps the body working.
Chapter 4: Mangoes Round the Year (pp. 35-41)
The summer mango treat that lasts the whole year raises the question of why food spoils, and how drying, salting and sunning keep food safe.
Chapter 5: Seeds and Seeds (pp. 42-50)
A sprouting project and wandering seeds show what seeds need to grow and how seed dispersal spreads plants, with a stop at insect-eating plants.
Chapter 6: Every Drop Counts (pp. 51-59)
Water from Al-Biruni’s time to the present-day water bill teaches that clean water is limited and that every person’s daily use matters.
Chapter 7: Experiments with Water (pp. 60-66)
Simple sink-and-float experiments, the Dead Sea and the Dandi March link floating and sinking, salt and history in one short chapter.
Chapter 8: A Treat for Mosquitoes (pp. 67-75)
A school health check story about malaria and anaemia shows how mosquito breeding, blood tests and prevention connect.
Parent note: Chapter 8 prints one section label in Hindi inside the English edition, so keep a small glossary handy if a child reads this chapter at home.
Chapter 9: Up You Go! (pp. 76-86)
A mountaineering camp diary builds teamwork, preparation and physical fitness as a group of children works its way up a mountain.
Chapter 10: Walls Tell Stories (pp. 87-98)
The walls and water arrangements of Golconda fort, and a visit to the museum, show what historical monuments and engineering can tell us about the past.
Chapter 11: Sunita in Space (pp. 99-109)
Sunita Williams’s account of living in space makes gravity and floating understandable, and a classroom spaceship turns the idea into a game.
Chapter 12: What if it Finishes…? (pp. 110-119)
A bus journey and a conversation at a petrol pump ask what happens when fuels such as petrol and wood run out, and what can be done now.
Chapter 13: A Shelter so High! (pp. 120-130)
Homes across Jammu and Kashmir — from high mountain shelters to houseboats — show how climate shapes shelter and livelihood, including the Changpa herders and their pashmina wool.
Chapter 14: When the Earth Shook! (pp. 131-138)
An earthquake survivor’s bad dream, and the relief work that followed, teach what happens in a disaster and how help and rescue reach people.
Chapter 15: Blow Hot, Blow Cold (pp. 139-146)
Blowing on hot food and on a swollen forehead shows that moving air can either cool or warm, and a paper whistle makes the air flow visible.
Chapter 16: Who will do this Work? (pp. 147-153)
Gandhiji’s insistence that every person should do every kind of work opens a conversation about dignity of labour and about who is expected to do the sweeping.
Chapter 17: Across the Wall (pp. 154-164)
The story of a girls’ basketball team from Mumbai shows that sport builds teamwork, and that games need not be divided by gender.
Chapter 18: No Place for Us? (pp. 165-173)
Jatrya’s family leaves the village for the city and struggles to find a place to stay, raising questions about migration, housing and dignity.
Chapter 19: A Seed Tells a Farmer’s Story (pp. 174-181)
A seed narrates the changing life of Bhaskarbhai’s farm to show how farming costs, loans and market prices have changed over time.
Chapter 20: Whose Forests? (pp. 182-191)
Suryamani’s forest life, jhoom farming and the Right to Forest Act 2007 ask who forests belong to and how forest rights work.
Chapter 21: Like Father, Like Daughter (pp. 192-199)
A family trait chart helps separate what children inherit from parents from what comes from environment and upbringing.
Chapter 22: On the Move Again (pp. 200-204)
Dhanu’s family moves again after Dussehra, pulling together the book’s lessons on seasonal migration and farmers’ lives.
Where the activity load sits: Chapters 5, 8 and 13 carry the most hands-on activities — Chapter 5 Seeds and Seeds has 2, Chapter 8 A Treat for Mosquitoes has 3, and Chapter 13 A Shelter so High! has 3.
At the other end, Chapters 7, 9, 15 and 16 are text and discussion based: they have no printed activity blocks, so their learning happens through the reading, the discussion prompts and small explorations rather than through a formal step-by-step activity.
Six chapters are told as first-person stories, where the learning arrives through a narrator’s experience rather than through experiments:
- Chapter 2: A Snake Charmer’s Story
- Chapter 9: Up You Go!
- Chapter 14: When the Earth Shook!
- Chapter 18: No Place for Us?
- Chapter 19: A Seed Tells a Farmer’s Story
- Chapter 22: On the Move Again
Chapter study pages for Looking Around
The list below shows which chapters already have a detailed study page on this site and which do not yet have one.
| Ch. | Chapter page |
|---|---|
| 1 | Super Senses (coming soon) |
| 2 | A Snake Charmer's Story (coming soon) |
| 3 | From Tasting to Digesting (coming soon) |
| 4 | Mangoes Round the Year (coming soon) |
| 5 | Seeds and Seeds (coming soon) |
| 6 | Every Drop Counts (coming soon) |
| 7 | Experiments with Water (coming soon) |
| 8 | A Treat for Mosquitoes (coming soon) |
| 9 | Up You Go! (coming soon) |
| 10 | Walls Tell Stories (coming soon) |
| 11 | Sunita in Space (coming soon) |
| 12 | What if it Finishes…? (coming soon) |
| 13 | A Shelter so High! (coming soon) |
| 14 | When the Earth Shook! (coming soon) |
| 15 | Blow Hot, Blow Cold (coming soon) |
| 16 | Who will do this Work? (coming soon) |
| 17 | Across the Wall (coming soon) |
| 18 | No Place for Us? (coming soon) |
| 19 | A Seed Tells a Farmer’s Story (coming soon) |
| 20 | Whose Forests? (coming soon) |
| 21 | Like Father, Like Daughter (coming soon) |
| 22 | On the Move Again (coming soon) |
How to use the Class 5 EVS book PDF for revision
This book is not built like an exam revision manual, but the chapters fall into related clusters. Reading in this order keeps connected ideas together.
- Body and food chapters first — read Chapters 1, 3 and 5 together (Super Senses, From Tasting to Digesting, Seeds and Seeds) so the ideas about how the body works and what keeps it going are practised in one stretch.
- Then the water pair — Chapters 6 and 7 (Every Drop Counts, Experiments with Water) — because Chapter 7’s float-and-sink work builds on Chapter 6’s ideas about how water is used and saved.
- Health and air next — Chapters 8 and 15 (A Treat for Mosquitoes, Blow Hot, Blow Cold) connect illness, cleanliness and moving air.
- Places, space and shelter — Chapters 10 to 14 cover a fort’s engineering, life in space, fuels and homes; read them as one set about how people build, travel and plan.
- Society, farming and migration last — Chapters 16 to 22 close the book with work, sport, cities, farmers, forests and moving; Chapter 22 is written to pull earlier chapters together.
- Use the chapter recaps as self-checks — most chapters end with a “What we have learnt” close, so answering its prompts is a quick test of what stuck.
One caution: textbook contents and the examinable syllabus are not always identical, so check the current official syllabus to see what is examinable this session.
Try it at home: a float-and-sink test that builds on Chapter 7
This experiment uses everyday objects and asks the same question Chapter 7 asks: will it float or sink?
- Fill a large bowl or bucket with water and set it on the floor.
- Gather five things: a peeled potato, an ice cube, a steel spoon, a cork and a small closed plastic bottle.
- Before testing, predict each object — write “float” or “sink” next to its name.
- Lower each object gently into the water, one at a time, and record what actually happens.
- Now stir 4-5 spoons of salt into the water and test the peeled potato again. Watch what changes.
| Object | Your prediction | In fresh water | After salt |
|---|---|---|---|
| Peeled potato | |||
| Ice cube | |||
| Steel spoon | |||
| Cork | |||
| Closed plastic bottle |
What to expect: the steel spoon sinks, while the cork, ice cube and closed bottle float. The peeled potato sinks in fresh water but can float once salt is added — salt water is denser, so it pushes up harder, the same reason people float easily in the Dead Sea that Chapter 7 mentions.
The conclusion to write at the end: objects denser than water sink, objects less dense than water float, and adding salt makes water dense enough to float things that sank. If a prediction was wrong, that is exactly what the experiment is for — an experiment tests a guess, it does not confirm it.
Related NCERT book pages
Looking Around is one of the books in the NCERT books directory, which lists every class and subject. For the rest of Class 5, start at the Class 5 NCERT books hub. Students coming up from Class 4 can check the Class 4 Environmental Studies book page to see what the previous year’s book covers.
Sources and data verification
This listing is maintained for the 2026-27 academic session using the NCERT textbook information available to us. NCERT remains the authority for confirming the latest edition.
This page describes the NCERT Class 5 Environmental Studies textbook Looking Around, official edition on ncert.nic.in.
It covers this one book only, not the other subjects of Class 5, and it is not a record of the CBSE Class 5 syllabus.
This listing is maintained for the current academic session using the NCERT information available to us.
NCERT settles textbooks, editions and PDFs; CBSE settles curriculum, syllabus and examinations. The page ranges and activity counts above are read from the textbook itself, so you can open any chapter PDF and check them.
Reference: NCERT Class 5 Environmental Studies textbook, official edition on ncert.nic.in.
Common questions about the Class 5 EVS book Looking Around
How many chapters are in the Class 5 Environmental Studies book Looking Around?
Looking Around has 22 chapters running across 204 printed pages, from Super Senses (pp. 1-14) to On the Move Again (pp. 200-204).
Where can I download the Class 5 EVS textbook PDF chapter by chapter?
Use the chapter table at the top of this page. It links all 22 chapters as separate PDFs, each one NCERT’s own file hosted on ncert.nic.in.
Is the Class 5 EVS book PDF free and official?
Yes. NCERT publishes the book free on ncert.nic.in, and every link on this page points to that official source rather than to a scan or a third-party copy.
Which chapter of Looking Around covers food and digestion?
Chapter 3, From Tasting to Digesting (pp. 22-34), follows the path from the taste buds through the stomach and ends with balanced food. Chapter 4, Mangoes Round the Year (pp. 35-41), continues the food thread with preservation.
Does the Looking Around book have exercise questions at the end of chapters?
No. The book teaches through in-chapter prompts and discussion questions rather than numbered end-of-chapter exercise blocks. Most chapters close with a “What we have learnt” recap, so revision should work from those prompts and recaps.