Eurasian Association of Youth Environmental Groups "Ecosystem" (Association "Ecosystem") is all-Russian non-profit association of youth environmental organizations. Our mission is ecological education of school students and teachers of Moscow, Russian Federation and former USSR republics. Association "Ecosystem" was founded in 1994 by a group of young biologists and educators, the former participants of the biological school group of the state Darwin Museum in Moscow. They had been filled with the ideas of the young naturalist movement and had worked out an unique experience of the traditional Russian ecology field education. The main activity of "Ecosystem" is an introduction of outdoor ideology and approach into the environmental education system, emphasizing children's involvement with concrete research work and nature conservation through different types of outdoor activities. Nowadays "Ecosystem" is an instructive-methodical center for the environmental education of school-children. It is oriented to work with Moscow city schools, institutions of the additional education and public environmental organizations all over the Russia that teach children ecology in natural settings. Details.
Our basic training principle is ecological education in the field, in other words, education in the environment, during nature walks and field trips, in expeditions and field camps. Following our teaching philosophy, all the classes are held maximally close to nature. Teaching young ecologists and their leaders concrete ways of research and nature conservation in natural conditions is the essence and basis of all "Ecosystem" events. Our published manuals, videos and identification guides, field lessons and practices, conferences, seminars, and teaching courses are directed to mastering up-to-date approaches in field ecology and the ways of the environment research by the participants of the Russian environment and young naturalist movement. We don't teach to play ecology and "to ecologize one's soul". We
teach to take a zooplankton samples, to measure the pollution, to describe vegetation,
to count birds and mammals and how to do these with children. In this case "one's
soul ecologizes itself". We consider adopting and spreading such an approach in education throughout the country to be the most important our mission for the future. We would like to see every child in Russia to be able to contact with and "research" real wild nature at least once or twice during his/her school years. And that is why we organize outdoor practical work for Moscow schools. We take schoolchildren of the city public schools to outdoor field practices for 3-4 days of their school-time. We aim at revealing before urban children the main objective of natural ecosystems' dynamics and functioning in different seasons. We feel that introduction of outdoor research practices into school education is necessary, because the information contained in the school textbooks is insufficient. Moreover, we believe that it is impossible to teach biology, geography and ecology remote from the living nature. What is the essence and importance of the "naturalistic" approach and why it is useful for schools? It's quite evident: nobody can think in environmental way without understanding precisely what we call "Nature", and also what Nature is, what it consists of, how it feels and what it needs. The "Ecosystem's" work and its form of the environmental education puts ideology of young naturalist movement into practice! Woods, wild nature and environmental education cannot be divided. Every reasonable person (not only an ecologist) must know something (have at least a short contact) about the uncontrollable world living according to its own rules, known as Nature.
Materials may be useful for foreign visitors
Ecological Field Studies Techniques Video 4CD Set: It is possible to purchase the complete set of 40 seasonal Ecological Field Studies Techniques Video (in mpg format) in an attractive 4 compact disk set. These compact disks are compatible with Mac and PC computers. The videos are suitable for individual student or whole class instruction. To purchase the complete 4CD set write to ecosystema1994@yandex.ru in a free form.
Ecological Field Studies Demo Disk: We also have a free and interesting demonstration disk that explains our ecological field studies approach. The demo disk has short excerpts from all the seasonal field study videos as well as sample text from all the teacher manuals. The disk has an entertaining automatic walk through which describes the field study approach and explains how field studies meet education standards. You can also download the Demo Disc from ecosystema.ru/eng/eftm/CD_Demo.iso. This is a virtual hybrid (for PC and Mac computers) CD-ROM image (one 563 Mb file "CD_Demo.iso"). You can write this image to the CD and use it in your computer in ordinary way. You also can use emulator software of virtual CD-ROM drive to play the disk directly from your hard disk.
In 2006 we opened two new sections of our site, that can be useful for foreign visitors.
Browsing this section of our site you will find a few thousand images of different nature objects - beginning with lichens and fungi and finishing by mammals and landscapes.
You are able to find necessary pictures using four different approach: All pictures have small preview and middle-sized image for free download. If you want to use image for professional (commercial) use there is a possibility to communicate with authors for buying the picture. We also want to keep your attention that this collection was made by professional biologists and geographers (as against of hundreds of other similar sites) - all objects from our collection are determined by scientist and have exact scientific name, date and place of taking picture, as well as a size of the original image.
These pictures are not so professional as in previous section, but may be useful for those who want to illustrate their scientific or educational articles and reports, as well as student reports and papers. All images are 1024 x 798 pixels and can be downloaded from the site for free. This section has English version - all pictures have English names and explanations.
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Our Teaching Philosophy
Ecological Field Studies.
Since 1996 different resource materials on outdoor
ecology have been published for school-teachers and teachers of the additional education: 
with a help of 
Russia (from West to East):
