Many thanks to the Commander Island Biosphere reserve for sharing this report and photos.
Buyan Bay Children Expedition
The Commander Islands National Park organizes environmental educational expeditions for children from Nikolskoye Village every year. Kids travel to different parts of Bering Island with employees of the national park and live the lives of researchers for several days. It is a good opportunity to learn more about the nature of the archipelago and discover details about our work by taking part in it.
This year, children came to Buyan Bay, situated on the Eastern coast of Bering Island. They spent there 3 days, which were full of various activities.
One of such lessons was about ichthyological work. We spoke about the methods to research fish population, the reasons to do so, as well as how to size fish and calculate female fertility. Some of the participants measured the fish themselves according to the traditional scientific method (overall weight, harvest length, median length, weight of reproductive glands, sex and maturity stage). They also registered if the fish had any bite marks, as they signify hunting during breeding season, and took samples.
Children also had a chance to take part in a creative workshop, organized by volunteer of the national park, who spoke about techniques used to draw nature objects, for example, skulls and skeletons of animals. Later that day we discussed work of a geobotanist, geologist and made resin souvenirs with natural materials.
During the expedition, the participants also cleaned local coastline and sorted the found waste into groups for further recycling in the closest city – Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. This clean up made the beach safer for animals and gave data on waste composition in the area. The clean-up was organized as a part of the All-Russian Coastline Clean-Up called Water of Russia.
To continue the theme of responsible waste management, the participants made textile shopping bag with their unique designs to minimize further single use plastic consumption.
The activities were structured around tasty meals and healthy active pastime. The expedition is housed in cabins of the national park. The lessons were conducted in the geodesic dome, which proved to be safe and comfortable in the Commander Islands weather conditions.
We have been organizing the expedition for over 5 years and we have some regular participants, who joined every one of them. As they get older for some of them this children expedition is the last one, but we hope to see them in the future on our workshops or as our team members.
Here is a newspaper report of the expedition