ISU Scientific Library hosted the fifth regional youth scientific and practical conference “Science, Tourism and environmental education in the Baikal region”.

The conference is organized by ISU Pedagogical Institute, Federal State-Funded Institution “Zapovednoye Pribaykalie” and Irkutsk Regional Branch of the All-Russian Society for Nature Conservation. The Center for Advanced Professional Training of the Irkutsk region took an active part in the conference as well.

The main purpose of the conference is to support and develop the creative research potential of Irkutsk students, attract them to participate in active research activities, expand the scientific experience of students, expand the relations between the Federal State-Funded Institution “Zapovednoye Pribaykalie” and educational institutions of the region.

At the opening of the conference, Svetlana Dobrynina, a representative of the All-Russian Society for Nature Conservation, welcomed the participants and noted that:

“Holding a youth conference has already become a good tradition, the geography of participants is expanding, the interest of young people in solving environmental problems in the region is growing and the environmental volunteer movement is gaining popularity.”

Olga Penkova, Head of the Department of Natural Sciences of ISU Pedagogical Institute, pointed out:

“The most effective type of environmental education work is the educational and research activities of students. In the course of research, environmental knowledge is being deepened, the students are improving their research, environment and communication skills. A great amount of research experience is gained by young people who have entered a university and are studying mainly in natural sciences.”

The conference was attended by students and teachers of Irkutsk region colleges and universities, students from RUDN (Moscow), colleges of Ulan-Ude also presented their reports online. All reports were evaluated according to the criteria of relevance, scientific novelty, quality of presentation and the report itself.

The organizers of the conference noted that the successful experience of the fifth student scientific and practical conference shows the effectiveness of this form of cooperation between governmental structures in environment protection and environmental education activities.