ENGLISH TROUGH ECOLOGY AND ECOLOGY THROUGH ENGLISH


From 30 November to 2 December students of different schools of Siberian Federal University from Russia, USA, China and Jamaica gathered in Solnechny Camp to extend their knowledge in ecology, practice English and create their own projects on environmental issues.

Do you know what ecology is? Have you ever thought about underlying values of this simple and commonly known concept? Have you heard that the word «ecology» derives from the Greek oikos, meaning «household» or «place to live»? Such important questions were raised at Ecology School which is the first step of the long-term project of School of Philology and Language Communication directed to creating bilingual educational environment at SibFU. Ecology is about our homes and it depends on each of us, that was the main idea promoted during this ecology and language immersion.

From the very first day participants were to collaborate and negotiate with each other. They learned how to be a real team in an entertaining way through team building games. Marina Shcherbakova, Senior Instructor of Linguistics and Intercultural Communications, stated, “I think, that in such events, it is always necessary to have a balance between serious and entertaining stuff and this school is not just a chance to speak English but for students from different schools of SibFU to get acquainted, to communicate, to get to know each other”.

Educational program consisted of diversified spectrum of workshops where the attention of the audience was attracted to environmental issues such as conservation, types of pollution, its sources and effects, species extinction, deforestation and on the finer points of presentation-making. Xiang Cai, a PhD student of School of Urban Environment, told the students how to optimize degradation of triclosan in simulated wastewater using bimetallic nanoscale Fe-Pd particles found in our toiletries.

Elena Belova, Head of Department of Foreign Languages for Sciences, explained, «Vladimir Putin declared this year to be the year of ecology. We followed this political trend and decided ecology to be the main topic of our language immersion. Moreover, Krasnoyarsk Economic Forum is going to be transformed into Ecological Forum. It will take place in September and those who participated in our school will be recommended as volunteers to accompany the guests».

All students were divided into eight groups the main concept being that there were students from different schools and departments with different knowledge baggage in each team for their technical assignment. For two days and one night students were making their projects, surfing the Internet accumulating their knowledge and rehearsing the pronunciation of complicated terms.

Evgenia Ilyina, a 4th year student of School of Engineering, said, “It’s well worth coming. I have never thought about ecology too closely, I did not know that we have a recycling center in Krasnoyarsk, for example. Of course, I worry about pollution but I have never thought what students can personally do with that. As for me, the most important thing is that I have met a lot of new friends here”.

The motto of Ecology School was To Learn English through Ecology and Ecology through English, which was organized as part of the project «5-100». A large number of students broadened their horizons, refreshed their knowledge in ecology and brought language barriers down. It is the result which organizers can be proud of, isn’t it?

Текст подготовили: Любовь Полежаева, студентка журналистики ИФиЯК, и Елена Лазуткина, старший преподаватель кафедры иностранных языков для гуманитарных направлений ИФиЯК

Похожие материалы