The Aquarium’s scientists make a deep impression on the Congress participants.
The 10th International Aquarium Congress ((IAC) was held in Fukushima, Japan, from 5 to 10 November. More than 450 participants from Australia, China, France, Germany, Japan, Poland, the RSA, Russia, the USA and some other countries attended the IAC. Two specialists of the Primorsky Aquarium, Olga Shevchenko and Marat Khaidarov, were among the invited guests and presented their reports at the Congress.
“My report on the capabilities of the Aquarium’s Research Building for Adaptation aroused a deep interest of our foreign colleagues. They were delighted with those large quarantine, animal husbandry and exhibit maintenance capacities we possess,” said Marat Khaidarov, Lead Specialist of the Department of Far Eastern Marine Organisms. “Generally, even large aquariums don’t have such ample capacities, and the existing facilities are either far away from exhibition buildings or too small. Our Research Building for Adaptation is spacious and properly equipped that enables us to move all inhabitants from any large tank (for example, such as the “Kelp Forest) to it, when needed.”
The Head of the Research Support Office Olga Shevchenko gave a presentation at the session dedicated to education in aquariums. “I made a report on two long-term projects, Growing up at the Aquarium and Educational Environment, carried out at the Aquarium, and I also told the participants about our short-term environmental education events such as Shark Day, Knowledge Day, World Oceans Day”, said Olga Shevchenko. “I was surprised to learn that the scale of educational activities implemented by the Primorsky Aquarium exceeded the one of the other aquariums represented at the Congress. In the course of a year 10,000 preschool and school children and university students attend classes under the Educational Environment project alone. In most aquariums, educational work with children implies one-time visits. The distinctive feature of the educational activities by our Aquarium is that we have developed a number of lessons for schoolchildren based on their curriculum, which are aimed at reinforcing the material studied at school. Classes are given at the exhibits. Since our specialists have designed a series of lessons for each school grade, pupils can visit the Aquarium in the framework of the project several times a year. At the end of my presentation more than 20 foreign colleagues expressed their admiration for our achievements. It emerged that the projects we had launched at the Primorsky Aquarium could be used as a basis for implementation of educational initiatives in the aquariums around the world.”
General information
The first international Aquarium Congress was held in 1960. Since 1994 it has been conducted every four years. The IAC provides the perfect meeting place for aquariums’ specialists to share their experience and to discuss issues on preservation of marine biological resources and world’s aquatic ecosystems.