Career workshops are resumed at the Aquarium
The Primorsky Aquarium has started the second year of career workshops for kids and teens. During sessions specially developed for the Aquarium visitors, anyone can try his or her hand at being a scientist, microbiologist, tour guide or animator.
“Last year we launched a series of workshops bound together by a common idea – visitors were offered the most impressive jobs of the Primorsky Aquarium staff, which are easy to understand for the younger generation, in the form of brief educational programs,” explained Olga Shevchenko, Head of the Environmental Education Service. “Workshops held in the labs – “I Am a Microbiologist”, “I Am a Scientist”- and “Clearly Visible Plankton” lab session received the most interest from children. The learning laboratories at the Primorsky Aquarium are equipped with superb microscopes and binoculars, and participating in the workshops, kids and teens who are passionate about science and intend to become medical professionals, biotechnologists or biophysicist get an exclusive chance to experience working with scientific equipment and to see those very objects, which are currently being studied by scientists throughout the world”.
Now children have an opportunity to attend four workshops and one lab session. At the “I Am a Scientist” workshop, kids and teens aged 10 to 18 years can get familiar with research microscopes and explore some complex aspects of unicellular life from the example of the infusorian Paramecium caudatum. Participants “catch” the protozoan, feed it with edible paint and observe its digestion.
The “I Am a Microbiologist” workshop is aimed at ages 9-14: its participants are introduced to the fascinating science of microbiology, find out what a Petri dish is and create a work of art using microorganisms.
At the “I Am a Tour Guide” workshop children can “try on” the career of a tour guide – during the one-hour session they are taught to draw up a tour plan, tour route and logical explanation of exhibits as well as to create a process map. At the end of the workshop its participants conduct a tour prepared by themselves.
“We have designed “I Am an Animator” workshop for children aged 9 to 14 years: youngsters of this age take interest in everything new, and sand animation is the thing which they particularly enjoy because at our session they can fulfill their creative potential – the chaos of sand turns into a true fairytale,” said Darya Berezovskaya, Specialist at the Education Department. “Our workshops are all different but equally engaging. There are some children who repeatedly went to the same workshop and learned something new each time.”
“The number of workshops will increase: specialists of the Education Department are developing new programs,” stressed Olga Shevchenko. “A workshop called “I Am a Paleontologist” will shortly be added to the existing ones. Though there is no such job at the Primorsky Aquarium, Russky Island is a “treasury” of relics, and in summer our specialists organize a paleopicnic – a tour across the island for fossil searching - for children participating in our Growing up at the Aquarium project. Having noted their interest in paleontology, we understood that the topic could be popular with kids and teens.”