An online project for young physicists and astronomers is launching at Vitebsk State University

September 9, Vitebsk / Sergey Kotov - BELTA /. The "Virtual School of Young Physicists and Astronomers" project will be launched on October 1 at the Vitebsk State University named after P. Masherov, the dean of the university's Faculty of Physics, Candidate of Physical and Mathematical Sciences Yuri Bokhan told a BELTA correspondent. The information and educational project is implemented in the form of an internet portal, which will be hosted on the university's website on the World Wide Web. University scientists, graduating students of the Faculty of Physics, and future computer science specialists took part in its development. To become a full participant in the project, it will be necessary to go through a standard registration for internet users on the portal. Virtual students of the school will gain access to a vast array of information on physics and astronomy. These are, first and foremost, various tasks - any student will be able to choose a problem to their liking and level of difficulty, while also verifying the correctness of their proposed solution and receiving advice and recommendations from experienced teachers in an interactive mode. The portal will feature textbooks, methodological and reference materials on fundamental sciences. It is planned to hold open discussions of tasks weekly (they require not only stating the answer but also an argued confirmation of the solution), and in the future, virtual conferences with students. The main goal of the project is to stimulate students' interest in learning physics and astronomy. This is not only about the Vitebsk region: during the test operation, users from other regions of the country also showed interest in the portal, noted Yuri Bokhan. The university plans to invite the most active participants of the virtual school to the university for experimental and practical classes, including to the astronomical center for research during school holidays. "Modern youth actively uses the Internet, the potential of information technologies must be used to train curious inventors, and an internet project is the most economically feasible way to engage teenagers in fundamental sciences," Yuri Bokhan is confident. At the same time, the task is not to prepare students for centralized testing, substituting or replacing school teachers. The concept of the portal's development provides for the creation of separate pages for teachers and the placement of methodological materials to assist school mentors. "The innovative development path of the country requires knowledge of fundamental sciences, and by conceiving the 'Virtual School,' we strive to increase interest in them, thereby stimulating innovative processes," summarized the dean of the Faculty of Physics. -0-