On October 15th, the final day of the 3rd All-Russian Children's Environmental Forum took place at the Taganay Congress Hall in Chelyabinsk. South Ural State University is one of its active organizers.
At the opening of the plenary session, the Chelyabinsk Region Governor Alexey Texler read a greeting from the President of Russia Vladimir Putin.
"Your project serves an important purpose: fostering a high level of environmental awareness in the younger generation and instilling a responsible, caring attitude toward Russia's priceless natural resources," President of Russia Vladimir Putin addressed the forum participants. "I feel confident that the children's environmental movement will continue to grow, expand its circle of supporters, and that the forum's meaningful ideas and initiatives will certainly be in demand."
The Governor also added that he has been monitoring the projects throughout the forum's history, watching them become increasingly professional each year, and that he feels confident that their implementation will make our country a better place.
Following the official ceremony, a plenary session was held in the format of an open dialogue on the "Caring for Nature: A Professional Calling or a Matter of Everyone's Personal Attitude". Young forum participants were able to ask experts questions about environmental protection. The plenary session was attended by the First Deputy Minister of Education of the Russian Federation Aleksandr Bugayev, Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Ecology Dmitry Kobylkin, and Chief of the General Staff of the Yunarmiya Movement and Hero of Russia Vladislav Golovin.
After lunch, forum participants were engaged in various master classes prepared for guests by educational institutions of the South Ural region.
South Ural State University presented three master classes: games "Along Protected Paths" and "Behind the Garnet Crown", organized by students, and session on the "Smart Vision: How a Neural Network Teaches a Robot to See and Sort Waste", led by Veronika Beliakova, a lecturer in the SUSU Department of Electronic Computing.
"Our master class is designed for schoolchildren of all ages – those interested in how neural networks are used for smart waste sorting," explained Veronika Beliakova. "Let's say we have a waste-collecting robot that navigates a designated area, collecting and sorting waste simultaneously. During the master class, my student assistants and I asked the students to create datasets with images of waste: glass, plastic, metal, paper. Then, together, we trained a neural network with computer vision based on Google's Teachable Machine platform and tested it."
The forum closed with a ceremony of awarding the winners on the main stage.