Sochi schoolchildren will study environmental management

The country's largest mountain resort, Rosa Khutor, will provide career guidance to students in the city's schools. The educational program of the natural science orientation "Sochi - the territory of nature tourism" was developed by the joint efforts of specialists from the city's system of children's education, the directorate of the Sochi National Park and the mountain complex. The program is deployed on the basis of the municipal institution of additional education for children "Ecological and Biological Center named after S.Yu. Sokolov", which preserves the traditions of environmental education since the time of the youth movement, which was widespread in the 80s.

According to the head of the Ecological and Biological Center Elena Malts, schoolchildren who choose to study the basics of environmental management as an extracurricular activity will not only get acquainted with the theoretical foundations of planning and implementing environmental measures in the field of tourism, but also solve practical problems on the basis of year-round mountain resort under the guidance of its staff. An important feature of the program is its focus on organizing tourism in the territory of the Sochi National Park, which demonstrates the highest attendance rates among similar specially protected natural areas in Russia.

“The Sochi National Park was the first in our country, and the purpose of its creation in 1983 was to preserve the unique natural complexes of the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus, use them for environmental, recreational, educational and scientific purposes. Over the past less than 40 years, we have accumulated vast experience, which we are ready to share with the younger generation. Among today's children there are future leaders, and many of them know and love nature not from the picture on the smartphone screen, because they have been on mountain hikes. Our task is to inspire them with the practical ability to set and solve often very complex environmental problems,” says Galina Soltani, chief research officer of the National Park Directorate, one of the developers of the program.

The program provides for a 32-hour course, including the study of theoretical material in the classroom, as well as an orientation trip to the Rosa Khutor mountain resort, during which schoolchildren will meet with full-time ecologists and have the opportunity to look at their future profession from a practical perspective. At the trial stage, the program will be trained in two streams of 10 children each. The course is aimed at middle and high school students interested in environmental issues.