BLOG DIARY - UKRAINE

We are happy to announce that we have completed the main part of our eco-project. We are going to continue our work on making the world greener that's why we are not speaking about the end of the project We believe in the urgent importance of it and its long-lasting effect. Eco-ideas and eco-deeds inspired by WWF will accompany us through the whole life! You may read about everything we've done during this time in our final report template here final_report_template_esfalp_ii_4bf42f74b400e.doc
( Word-Document, 10,55 MB)
You are also welcome to see our power point presentation we are going to show at the final eventeco-project_balta.pptx
( Powerpoint, 6,49 MB)
And this is our final eco-team: real, cool and enviromentally green:-) with eco-minds and eco-actions :-) ready to meet new eco-friends:-)
WE HAVE THE ONLY PLANET, SO LET'S MAKE IT GREENER TOGETHER!

We don't pretend to be original and truly speaking we didn't plan to collect waste paper. In fact this idea came to some of our team even after we had sent the final project report to WWF. But as we have some money difficulty with repairs of the room for our  school water museum, we decided to help gathering waste paper. During the first week in May the majority of schoolchildren and teachers became involved in the action and we really collected a huge waste paper "mountain":-) All the money from it will be spent for the school museum of the Kodyma river!

On April, 27 together with local authorities, businessmen, other schools,  active citizens  from our town and 12 villages situated on the river bank we gathered to clean the river and the surrounding territory. It’s difficult to count but we think that about 2,000 people were involved in the “Clean the River” action. We decided together with local authorities (town and district councils) to set Town River Days regularly to make the people get used to maintain the territory and the river in order. It wasn't an easy though very important job! You can see and enjoy our part of it on the photos:
WE DID IT!

April, 26 was a great ecological catastrophy on Chornobyl nuclear power station. It's a longlasting tragedy and pain not only of Ukrainian people, the outcomes of this terrible accident are known in many European countries. On this day we remembered those who gave their lives liquidating the consequences of the catastrophy. The pupils of the eighth form made an exposition and a performance dedicated to this day. The told other schoolchildren about the great catastrophy and its terrible outcomes.  

Saturday, 24 of April was announced by our President as a nation-wide Environment  Day, so we decided to plant flowers near our school on this day. Together with the teachers and children we cleaned the school territory, plant a lot of flowers on the flower-beds we have in front of school, and make some new ones. The day was sunny, everybody was in a good mood and we had a lot of fun! Just see our photocollection:

On April, 22 we celebrated the World Earth Day at school. Our drama studio "Cool to Be Green" showed the performance with ppt and video presentation dedicated to this day. We also invited our local TV company "Prymor'e" which filmed the performance and showed on local TV channel for more people of town and district to see. They also interviewed some of our team people and we told about the World Earth Day, WWF activities and, of course, about our team project.
Here is the English version of ppt presentation we showed during the performance. You can find some familiar faces :-))earth_day.pptx
( Powerpoint, 6,76 MB)
And this is the video from the performance (divided in three parts)watch1.
( Unknown, 80,76 kB)watch1_4c0542ef0ffa1.
( Unknown, 82,69 kB)watch2.
( Unknown, 83,28 kB)

In April we held an ecological week at school (19-24/04/2010), during which we had “green” lessons,  a poem and art contest “The Blue Beauty”, a contest of pupils’ ecological presentations “The World Around US”, young inventors’ eco-forum “What I could do to make the world greener”, the eco-action in the town market and other events. The highlight of the week was the celebration of the World Earth Day (22/04/2010). It was a drama performance accompanied by video and multi-media presentation. We invited our local TV company “Prymor’e” that filmed the performance and then interviewed our young eco-activists.
Poem and Art Contest. Some schoolchildren wrote beautiful poems about the river  in Ukrainian, Russian and even English. We included them in our book "Meet the river Kodyma". Here is one of the English verses written by one of the participants:
The River
There's a beautiful river that flows
Just in the centre of Balta town.
I walk along its dreamy banks
Every day on my slow way back home.
There's a tender river flowing
Just in the middle of my heart
With its joys and sorrows,
With the hope to return its might.
Other children wished to express their eco-feelings in paintings, drawings and eco-wallpapers:
Pupils’ ecological presentations “The World Around US”
Midddle school and senior students made various ecological projects (in three languages: Ukrainian, Russian and English) and present them  at  "green" lessons (middle school pupils) and at ecological conference (senior students).
And this is the winner of ecological projects contest - Olexandr Sbitnyev with the presentation about forests (it is in Russian, but we remember that some of you know or just learn this language) -_.ppt
( Powerpoint, 2,26 MB)
 
       The eco-action at the town market .
Before the World Earth Day, on April, 21 our eco-team held an eco-action at the town market. We talked with the sellers about the importance of keeping the river banks clean, the World Earth Day and our school eco-project. We also gave them eco-leaflets with the appeal to join us on Clean the River Day. _4befb651c73a1.pdf
( PDF-Document, 473,68 kB)The day was rather cold and rainy but managed to find the audience!
Young inventors’ eco-forum “What I could do to make the world greener”
Senior students worked out some very interesting ecological inventions to make the world greener and presented them at the inventors' eco-forum on April, 23. Some ideas we should say were difficult to make real and even fantastic, but some of the gadgets were quite possible to apply in practice. As a result we are going to make a meeting with the town council representatives and present them our ideas how to make town and river cleaner.Here are some presentations and photos! solar_energy_for_hot_water_supplies.pptx
( Powerpoint, 828,03 kB)my_ecological_machine.pptx
( Powerpoint, 119,48 kB)

On March, 20 we made an appointment with the chief of the district administration Valeriy Zhelihovskyi and gave him a letter of appeal to support the WWF initiative and join The Earth Hour action. He agreed to turn off the lights in the central streets for an hour on March, 27. Besides, we published the announcement about the Earth Hour - 2010 in the local newspaper "Nasha trybuna" and handed out the leaflets among students and teachers. _.doc
( Word-Document, 59,50 kB)
On March, 27 we showed a video presentation about Earth Hour - 2010 to different classes and told about the history of Earth Hour action and its importance for the Earth's climate. We didn't make a party at school, we decided to celebrate the Earth Hour at home with families.
But it was not the only activity that day. After classes the whole school gathered outside to clean the territory and plant trees. A lot of work was done!

In February we completed collecting the needed materials (from different sources: books, media, internet, talks, surveys, nature observations) and began to work on publising the book about rare species of plants, animals and birds which are in the danger of extinction but still can be seen in the river Kodyma's basin. We are going to present it at the final event. We are sure it's of great importance  to know the wildlife problems and save it for the future. You can see the cover of our book here:red_book.pdf
( PDF-Document, 274,76 kB)

Together with the school vice-principal Zhanna Kapkina and music teacher Oleg Nikityuk we organized the school ecological drama&art studio “Cool To Be Green”.
We continued to gather the materials for the river museum and the Kodyma Red Book (more and more pupils are becoming interested in the process). We also had a meeting with the editor of another local newspaper “Nasha Trybuna” and presented  the project goals and our action-plan with the appeal to the local authorities, businessmen, active citizens and youth organisations to join our action. You can read the article about on the newspaper web site (if you know Ukrainian, of course :-))
index1php_namenewsoparticlesid350.
( Unknown, 44,55 kB)

During December the project team was busy gathering the information about the river Kodyma’s history, its biodiversity, literary and art works associated with the river etc. We have already collected a lot of information both from the internet sources and visiting local libraries. Our activists made some meetings with local historian and writer Bohdan Sushynskyi, the editor of the local newspaper “Vash Interes” Taisia Krys’ko and the town major Ivan Barbash, who are also co-organizers of the town program “Balta for Tourists”.  They’ve become interested in our work and given a promise to help us in realizing the project. On the basis of the gathered information we created the book about our river, its past, present and future, which we are going to present at the final event in June. Here is the cover of it: .pdf
( PDF-Document, 77,71 kB)

Our first meeting was at the end of October. We gathered quite a large audience (both senior students and teachers) to listen to the outcomes of our visit to Austria. Our aim was to send the eco-message to everybody and to make everybody decide if he/ she is eager to participate in the project.

Unfortunately, we had the other three weeks of the flue quarantine in Ukraine and had to stay at home. But we managed to work out the main project ideas and every member of the team was busy with collecting info about the history, biodiversity, ecological situation of our river Kodyma. Besides we published two articles about our visit to Esfalp academy and our project ideas in the school newspaper and in one of the local papers "Vash Interes".

We began our school project at the end of October last year. At the first meeting we presented the Esfalp academy work and form the project team. Here we are in the photo (not all, though), nice fellows:-)
We called our project “SAVE THE RIVER FOR YOUR FUTURE”. The main project idea is mobilization of all the indifferent citizens of our town to save the small river Kodyma in the map of Ukraine making it one of the most beautiful sights of the town and favourite recreational area of its people.
We defined the project objectives as follows:
-to draw attention to the present-day ecological river state with the help of ecological actions, different contests and performances, publications in local newspapers, programs on local TV, information on the school web-site, meetings with authorities, businessmen, town citizens;
-to organize a school ecological drama&art studio
-to create the River Kodyma museum on the base of the searched materials about its history and present, biodiversity, artworks, students’ projects etc;
-to set Town River Days once a month to maintain the river banks clean;
-to organize rest areas for the town citizens on the river banks (together with authorities, businessmen and volunteers);
-to publish  the book about the Kodyma River (together with local historians, writers and poets, artists, publishing editors);
-bring up people’s ecological culture and cultivate the feeling of responsibility for the nature and our future
These were the main goals and expected results. How we managed to do it you will learn in the next issue:-)

There is a good proverb in English:”East or West,home is best”.Every person has a place that is dear to his heart.The place that is dear to us is a little town in the north of Odessa region.It is our native town Balta and we love it for its beauty, its history and  its  people.
  Balta is situated on the both banks of the river Kodyma and especially lovely in spring, when everything is in blossom.It is famous for its  cherry trees and gardens.Many poets have written about our green and beautiful town.
 Balta is quite an old town .Its history began in the 16th century, when the town enjoyed a wide popularity as a trade centre. In 1865 the first railroad linked Odessa and Balta. It made Balta a developed commercial and industrial town. The town has a rich history. There are a lot of ancient buildings, monuments and cultural places in town, such as St. Uspenskyi Cathedral, St. Stanislav Church, the Glory Memorial, Shevchenko Monument and others. Different festivals, concert and cultural events often take place on the main square and you can have a great time visiting them.
  And now some words about our school. It's a secondary school with humanitarian orientation. Though it is quite old (nearly 75 years old) we are happy to study at it. Its success constituents are:
- innovative and informational technologies
- a wide choice of elective, optional and special courses
- a good level of foreign language competence
- pre-university preparation
- active participation in Ukrainian and international cultural and educational projects
- close cooperation with parents
It's the best place to study and have fun!

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