Orsha schoolchildren will represent the country at the International Youth Environmental Conference in Berlin

200 applicants from all over the world participated in the research competition, which was held for the third time by the Goethe Institute as part of the project "School for Ecology: Think, Research, Act!". High school students from Orsha Secondary School No. 20 were among the top ten winners and will represent Belarus in Berlin along with Germany, Latin American countries, Cameroon, Russia, Ukraine, Armenia, Tajikistan, Georgia, and Azerbaijan.

The jury, consisting of representatives from the Ministry of Science, Research and Culture of the federal state of Brandenburg, the Free University of Berlin, the University of Bremen, the University of Agricultural and Environmental Education Vienna, and the Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus-Senftenberg, highly appreciated the contribution of young Orsha researchers to environmental protection and became interested in their project.

For 8 months, from April to November 2016, Yana Enushevskaya, Kristina Vasilenko, Natalia Galaenko, Tamila Gut, Elizaveta Lesnevskaya, under the guidance of German language and biology teachers Elena Kamashuk and Natalia Lazarevich, sought an answer to the question "What do coniferous trees keep silent about?". This question formed the basis of the research work, which the students carried out with the help of specialists from the Orsha Forestry. The young ecologists investigated the causes of spruce and pine drying out, not only in the city but also in the forest, and then developed measures to eliminate them.

– As a result of meticulous work, we have established that pine and spruce trees in the city are dying due to environmental pollution, primarily air pollution, – says ninth-grader Yana Enushevskaya. – In the forest, spruce suffers from the bark beetle. To improve the ecological situation, we proposed a transition to eco-friendly transport and strict control over vehicle emissions, refusal to cut down healthy trees in the forest for the New Year holidays, timely sanitary logging, and more intensive forest restoration. By the way, garbage in the forest is also one of the reasons for the spread of pests. Together with foresters, we have already started making special traps for the bark beetle.

Incidentally, thanks to the enthusiasm of Natalia Lazarevich, Secondary School No. 20 is the only one in the district that closely cooperates with the forestry enterprise, and members of the school forestry become students of higher education institutions in forestry.

– As part of the project, children participated in tree planting campaigns, made artificial Christmas trees, and became guides at the school's ecological museum, where they told their peers about forest conservation, – says Elena Kamashuk. – We prepared all the research in German, staged a theatrical presentation, and created an advocacy poster, which will be evaluated separately. In Berlin, the best work will be selected from eleven contenders from different countries.

It is noteworthy that the initiative "School for Ecology: Think, Research, Act!" itself has been awarded the quality mark "Project in the Field of Sustainable Development – 2017" by the Council for Sustainable Development. Such a mark is awarded to projects that make the world more environmentally friendly and socially oriented.

OLGA LEBEDEVA, "Vitebskiye vesti", photos from the school archive.