Green on-line education in the Urals

The period “Stay at home” -  is the time for environmental education, - decided the young activists from Yekaterinburg and Severouralsk. During quarantine, they don’t waste time in vain and conduct video tutorials, participate in online lectures and continue to promote an eco-friendly lifestyle. Ways to save resources and energy, waste management, climate and health - these topics became the reason for the virtual events of young Urals.

“It only seems that during a pandemic, environmental problems are no longer a priority. In fact, health issues are closely related to the environment and the behavior of each of us”, - says Olga Podosenova, SPARE coordinator of the School Ecological Project from the Ural region.

Young environmentalists from "Zeleny Dozor" Movement regularly organize online lectures. The first event was about "virtual water" - "Water footprint. - What is it? ” An interactive lecture was conducted by a student of the Ural State Pedagogical University Ekaterina Sushko. Virtual water is the volume of water required for the full production cycle. This unit is used to determine the amount of water used for food, consumer goods, industrial production and services. For example, in one cup of coffee on average contains about 140 liters of “virtual water”, in a cotton shirt - 2500 liters, in jeans - 10 800 liters, and in a passenger car - up to 378 500 liters of “virtual water”, - says Ekaterina.

One online lecture was dedicated to Earth Day. The students were affected by a whole range of environmental problems:- the separate collection and recycling of waste, climate change, vegetarianism, improving the environmental situation in the world due to measures taken to COVID-19.

Young ecologists devoted several events to the topic of waste sorting and the second life of things. They discussed and demonstrated how to reduce the amount of garbage during a difficult epidemiological situation and protect from infection.

Young residents of Yekaterinburg staged a “joint slamming”, deciding that now is the time to put in order the surrounding space. They also held a Challenge “Paketvpakete”, which consisted in sorting packages accumulated at home and proposing ideas for reducing the use of plastic in everyday life.

“After the lecture, it felt like we were all back from the real event. A charge of energy has appeared. Now all the information received is being processed, ” - said Alena Zekina, member of “Zeleny Dozor” Movement about her feelings.