The educational training camp on geography that is annually held for winners of the final stage of the all-Russian Geography Olympiad completed its work in the Tver region. During two weeks senior schoolchildren visited lectures and practical classes on geography.
This year 26 pupils from the Volgograd, Vologda, Kirov, Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, Saratov and Chelyabinsk regions, the Udmurt and Chuvash republics, the Perm Kray, Moscow and St. Petersburg stayed in the camp. All the participants are senior schoolchildren, for whom this program is an opportunity to prepare for competitions in geography, in particular for the international iGeo school Olympiad, which will take place in August in Quebec (Canada).
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The schoolchildren took part in classes on calculations of social and economic indicators, learnt the basics of urban economy, got to know about agglomerations and agglomeration effects, listened to lectures on how geography was connected with other sciences, as well as on problems of geo-ecology, oceanology, etc.
The trainings were headed by: candidate of geographical sciences, associate professor of geography of Orel State University Dmitry Bogachev; candidate of geographical sciences, leading researcher of the Department of Economic and Social Geography of Russia at the Faculty of Geography of Lomonosov Moscow State University; candidate of pedagogical sciences, Deputy Director of the Institute of Continuous Pedagogical Education RUDN Valentina Abaturova.
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Field trips were also organized for the children. The first route took place on the Volga River near the town of Staritsa, where the young geographers learned how to determine the shape of the river valley relief and age of deposits by fossils found in them. The research helped to design the geological and geomorphological profile of the Volga River.
At the second field class, the children went on a scientific tour, the end point of which was the village of Sloboda. They performed a number of tasks on physical and economic geography: determined the types of vegetation, landforms, land types. The collected data helped young men and women design detailed maps of the village.
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The final test at the camp included various questions and tasks on their knowledge of school geography and English.
The schoolchildren who will represent Russia at the international iGeo Olympiad will have another week of intensive training. Those who will not go to Canada this year these trainings have helped prepare for the next year Russian and international Olympiads and to get new knowledge and skills.