St. Petersburg, Russia - The XIII Conference of Schoolchildren on "The Baltic region yesterday, today, and tomorrow" took place in St. Petersburg on March 22 – 23, 2013. As usual, it consisted of two blocks: students' work and teachers' work. Tatyana Krasnosumova, leader of UPF in northwest Russia, was invited to be a member of the jury of the section on communications and social problems.
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The range of interests of the young scientists was very diverse:
- Money yesterday, today, and tomorrow;
- Information and publication activity at the lyceum;
- Migrants
- Asocial behavior of teenagers;
- Comparative analysis of models of local self-government in Russia and Europe;
- Monitoring children’s situation in St. Petersburg;
- The social and cultural environment of the Petrograd District of St. Petersburg;
- The 75th anniversary of the transcontinental flight of Valery Chkalov; and
- Usva River.
Children spoke in support of their project and answered the questions of the jury and the audience. Each one was very well prepared, with competent speeches, good knowledge and informative slide-presentation. The conference showed that there are many schoolchildren taking great interest in science, indicating that Russia has good prospects for the future.
The pedagogical section was the second block of the conference. The teachers explored fields such as student health, science in the service of people, hydro-ecology, St. Petersburg as Russia's cultural capital, humanism, and morality. The participants discussed research and design activity in the field of ecological education as the module in the framework of high school standards. They deliberated about:
- Research into traditional and innovative forms of projects and their results;
- The ABCs of social harmony;
- Project activity as an integral part of education;
- The relationship of family and ecology; and
- Prospects for interaction among schools, grassroots organizations, and legislative and executive bodies to promote ecological education.
Among the participants were about 40 representatives working in the educational sphere on different levels: Director of the Institute for Consulting on Ecological Projects from Moscow; President of the Global Association of Harmony; vice president of the Federation for Ecological Education; and schoolteachers from St. Petersburg.