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 Teaching Philosophy
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
Our Mobile Applications: Identification Field Guides.
In 2020-2021 we published several Field Identification Guides for Nature lovers and professionals:
Educational Applications:
Ecological Field Studies Techniques: Investigating Nature with Kids
40 environmental study lessons and instructional videos how to conduct nature study research with kids and secondary school students on five main subjects: geography, botany, zoology, water ecology and environmental monitoring
Mobile Field Identification Guides:
Birds of North America: Songs and Calls Decoys
Voices of 227 North American birds - male songs, male and female calls, alarm and aggression calls, begging and juvenile calls and many other types of sounds.
Birds of Russia PRO: Field Identification Guide
Professional identification guide for 680 bird species inhabiting Northern Eurasia - from Eastern Europe to the Russian Far East (Pacific Ocean) and from Arctic Ocean to China.
Birds of Russia Sounds PRO: Songs, Calls and Voices
Professional sound collection for 680 bird species inhabiting Northern Eurasia - from Eastern Europe to the Russian Far East (Pacific Ocean) and from Arctic Ocean to China.
Download Ecosystem mobile applications from
Our Paperback and eBooks on Amazon, Google Play and App Store
Ecological Field Studies.
Since 1996 different resource materials on outdoor
ecology have been published for school-teachers and teachers of the additional education: forty instructive-methodical manuals (in Russian), instructive Ecological
Field Techniques Materials (in English) - 40 videos
and 40 manuals explaining how to arrange
scientific-research work with children in nature, computer-based multimedia identification
guides (trees in winter and summer, wild flowers, insects and birds), printed color
identification tables for plants and animals of Russia (in Russian), and so on (see list of publications).
First in Russia we
developed a Resource Book for Environmental Education for children (in Russian).
Among the instructive
events from 1995 since this time we can mention 45 conferences, seminars, courses for
educators, over 60 field camps for young ecologists from all over the Russia, and hundreds
of 2-4 days field practices for Moscow school-students. All these practical events since
1995 we are arranging at our own field biological forest station - Ecosystem
Center for Field Studies.
In 2007 we are going
to publish a book "The Field Studies Practices for school students of 5th -
10th grades" that will include a set of videos that summarizes the
"Ecosystem's" experience in teaching outdoor environment practices for Moscow
schoolchildren.
In 2006 we opened two new sections of our site, that can be useful for
foreign visitors.
First is Russian Nature
in PhotographsNEW !!! (there is a
full English version of this section). This is a joint project of two Russian
environmental organizations - Field Ecology Center "ECOSYSTEM" and independent
group of Russian professional biologists called RUSBIOPHOTO group. The main aim of both
our organizations is to provide biologists, geographers, school teachers and all
nature-lovers by scientifically reliable information about nature objects of
Russian Federation and all former USSR territories.
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: with a help of Geographic Index (all objects are separated
by countries and nature geographical zones), with a help of Systematic Index (all objects are
separated by their systematic position), with a help of Alphabetical Index (all objects are separated by
their scientific Latin names according to the alphabet), with a help of
standard Search Form (you can search
scientific (Latin) names of species, genus, family, or order).
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.
Another useful section of our site is World Nature in Photographs. This section
contains images of natural landscapes and some plants and animals, taken in different
countries and continents:
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.
Another, additional section of our site that may also be useful
for foreign visitors is Russian Plants and Animals.
This section is only in Russian, but it includes about 700 images (scanned from originals
- real nature objects) of our native plants (trees
and shrubs, wild flowers) in different
seasons, as well as drawings of water
invertebrates, insects and birds. Each object has scientific Latin name, so
you can find necessary image using search form.
Our Field Ecology Center published more than
180 methodical materials for nature studies. Some of them are in English:
Our Mobile Applications: Identification Field Guides.
In 2020-2021 we published several Field Identification Guides for Nature lovers and professionals:
Ecological Field Studies Techniques: Investigating Nature with Kids
Birds of North America: Songs and Calls Decoys
Birds of Europe PRO: Field Identification Guide
European Bird Sounds PRO: Songs, Calls and Voices
European Bird Sound Decoys: Songs, Calls, Voices
Birds of Russia PRO: Field Identification Guide
Birds of Russia Sounds PRO: Songs, Calls and Voices
Our Paperback and eBooks on Amazon, Google Play and App Store
with a help of 
Russia (from West to East):
