• Home • About Fund  • Partners • Contact Info • Fund's Programs
 • A series of master classes organized for Moscow teachers...

CITY YOUTH: LEARNING TO BE USEFUL!

This project prepared by the Fund “Sustainable Development” became the winner of the contest of socially significant projects (programs) implemented by public and other non-governmental non-profit organizations in Moscow in 2006.

Project organizer: Moscow City Public Relations Committee
Project term: June-September 2006
Project location: Moscow

The project “City Youth: Learning to Be Useful!”

 

Project Summary:

In June 2006, a series of master classes was conducted in the form of one-day training sessions devoted to the subject of new tested environmentally oriented techniques and forms of youth participation in the life of a city. The master classes are facilitated by experienced leaders of youth and school environmental projects from across Russia.

During the master classes, Moscow educators become acquainted with the experience of Russia’s most successful network school and youth projects that may be used to enhance the existing learning and recreation programs of city summer camps. The master classes are based on the expertise of projects involving hundreds of teachers and thousands of schoolchildren of all ages.

The main idea of the project is to share regional experience with the capital and to pass on the techniques of designing and implementing school and youth multi-theme and multi-scale projects in the following areas:

GAME ECOLOGY - a workshop devoted to 16 tested educational subprograms intended for children aged 5-15 that comprise one single continuous environmental education program.
The authors of this program – the team of the Environmental Education Center from the city of Obninsk headed by Dr. Shpotova – have introduced it in 13 regions of the country. The overall goal of the continuous environmental education program developed by this team is to Bring up a Person Who Will Not Harm Nature. During the training sessions, children learn to appreciate and love nature and realize their connection with it. Under this program, a network of 14 regional centers covering the entire country from Petrozavodsk to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatski has been formed (in 2005 the 14th RC was opened in the city of Beslan). There is also a correspondence environmental education school for teachers from remote regions. During the past 12 years, 3,000 teachers were trained at this school with over 30,000 pupils being involved in the program. The Russian Federation Ministry of Education has approved one of the subprograms, Nature Harmony, as an official school subject.

ENVIRONMENTAL COMMONWEALTH – over 150 children’s environmental organizations from 48 regions of Russia, Byelorussia and the Ukraine collaborate in the framework of this first in Russia children’s telecommunication project headed by Dr.Rykhlikova. Starting from 1997, this project has been organizing contests of children’s environmental works and drawings; and at the project’s Website there is an ongoing active exchange of information on the results of studies and educational and conservation activities carried out by schoolchildren and their teachers. Over 130 activities to protect the environment have taken place in the  regions, such as planting trees and shrubs, certifying nature monuments, eliminating unauthorized dumps, protecting early flowering plants, and studying the history of water springs and brooks. Every year, this project implements the following integrated subprograms: Early Flowers, A Sip of Water, Galactic Experts, We Will Save Our Earth, Nature Reserves Need Help, Our Feathered Friends, and They Must Live. A series of national biological teleconferences were also held, at which members of children’s organizations from across the country shared their experience.

HOUSEHOLD WASTE AS A SOURCE OF PRIMARY MATERIALS - methods and techniques of involving schoolchildren, the youth and local residents of Pushchino in the formation of a municipal waste collection and processing network. This project develops programs for school environmental study groups at which  the children are educated in modern waste management and energy saving techniques; organizes work teams of schoolchildren for monitoring residential buildings; creates guidelines and manuals devoted to the  subject of consumption waste recycling such as “Our Clean House” intended for 4th and 3rd grade students and their teachers and “Say No to Waste” intended for 6th-9th grade students. The head of this project, Dr. Galina Sapozhnikova, for over 10 years has been developing a multi-sector interaction model in the sphere of separate waste collection. All city schools are participating in 4B Activities (separate collection of such waste as paper, glass bottles, batteries, and aluminum cans).   

FRIENDS OF PARKS - a many-year project aimed at promoting youth participation in conservation activities in the green areas of Moscow; conducting research by school students; organizing cleaning and improvement activities in parks; and advertising the need to preserve wild nature in the city. The project is an independent component of the national children’s movement Friends of Protected Island, which brings together dozens of Specially Protected Nature Areas (SPNA) in Russia and thousands of schoolchildren; and which held three national Friends of Protected Islands Conferences in Moscow since 2000. The network project is overseen by the Zapovedniki Environmental Education Center.

In August and September 2006, the activities of this project will include designing and implementing small projects devoted to subjects studied at master classes that have been conducted in a number of Moscow schools. The projects will be jointly designed by teachers and high school students and will give adolescents a chance to become involved in socially useful activities of preserving the nature of their city and to learn about traditional nature management techniques. The facilitators of the master classes will provide methodological support to these projects.