Energy Saving Day - 2021 in Moscow and the Moscow Region: summing up the results and developing new action plans in the areas of saving climate, resources, and energy

Authors: Ludmila Zhirina, Anna Krat, Lidia Povzikova

In the Moscow region, more than 50 schools, kindergartens, educational centers took part in the Energy Saving Day. The events were held in on-line and off-line systems. More than 1,500 schoolchildren and 300 teachers received updated information about the opportunities for families, schools, and communities to participate in climate preservation, energy efficiency, and waste-free living.

The algorithm for organizing and holding the Energy Saving Day in the Moscow region in 2021 included three stages.

1. Preparatory Stage  

In October 2021, the regional coordinators and methodologists of SPARE developed and sent to 150 educational and educational institutions of the Moscow region proposals and recommendations for the effective implementation of the Energy Saving Day. These recommendations offer assistance to school administrations and teachers to organize practical actions, including real steps to introduce energy-saving and energy-efficient technologies in educational institutions. To promote strategies for the separate collection and recycling of waste, we have created presentations such as “Living Without Waste,” “Environmental Habits,” and “Creating Climate Plans. We created a training webinar for school teachers and representatives of district education departments, in which we gave information about new books and methodological manuals, and the exhibition "Zero Waste from Plastic,” compiled by the team of the Russian SPARE in 2021.

Presentations and information about new SPARE manuals were disseminated among new schools in the region to attract them to the ranks of schools using the program. In September-October, regional coordinators developed, adapted, and circulated recommendations on climate and energy issues; separate waste for children with disabilities, for gender groups, for schoolchildren of Waldorf schools.

For kindergartens, we have developed scenarios for classes, business games, concerts and festivals to familiarize children with the possibilities of energy conservation and resource conservation. Scenarios of events on the theme "Zero Waste - One Hundred Approaches" aroused great interest.

2. Stage of Implementation

Schoolchildren in twenty two Moscow schools and educational centers held contests for posters and drawings on the topics of waste minimization. From the best drawings, the children created leaflets about separate waste in their own city. Schoolchildren provided these flyers to district municipalities and set up school stands.

• In 17 Moscow schools, round tables were held for high school students and parents to attract additional stakeholders to promote the reduction, sorting and recycling of waste in the neighborhoods where the school is located.
• We conducted six (6) training workshops for teachers in the Moscow region on the topics: “Local mitigation measures”, “Working on the preparation of the School's Climate Plan”.
• More than 400 schoolchildren and teachers from 15 schools in the region took part in disseminating information about the Zero Waste and Plastic Exhibition.
• Eleven (11) schools in Moscow organized exhibitions at Zero Waste and Plastic in their own school and created active groups of students to conduct excursions for different ages.
• Eight (8) schools have made Energy Saving Day a priority: work on the school's Climate Plan. Schoolchildren and teachers showed the residents of their neighborhoods that having their own, actually working, climatic plan is modern and necessary.
• Six (6) schools, more than 200 schoolchildren and teachers took the Energy Saving Day as a basis: climate and energy issues. The schoolchildren themselves made presentations, carefully studied the exhibition "Energy Efficient Building", spoke to classmates and parents. Three (3) Roundtables and two (2) school mini-festivals were held.
• More than 300 families held a “Family Day of Small Deeds”: they insulated their apartments and houses, wiped dust off lighting fixtures, collected waste paper, plastic, and electric batteries in special points.
• In many schools, educational centers in Moscow and the region, on the Day of Energy Saving, a variety of events were held. Here are some interesting examples.

The Moscow Eco-Educational Center "Vorobyovy Gory" has been an active participant in the SPARE Program since 2010. In 2021, the Center organized presentations for an Energy Saving Month at all of its demonstration and training sites. Under the leadership of Ekaterina Kolesova, head of the Vorobyovy Gory Ecological and Educational Center (EEC), the following were carried out:

• Two webinars (for schools in the Moscow region and the Central Federal District) discussing School Climate Plans for the Moscow Region and the best plans for other Russian regions drawn up in 2019-2021 in the SPARE Program.
• Regular individual consultations for schools, which continue their long-term work on climate plans.
• Three training workshops for new schools that have started work on the Climate Plan. Tinatin Egnatashvili, senior methodologist and curator of lyceum classes in natural sciences, and Alexander Koloskov, teacher of additional education, teacher of ecology and biology, have been leaders of school projects of the competition "Energy and Habitat" of the SPARE program since 2012. These instructors  helped organize the exposition and disseminate information about the Zero Waste and Plastics exhibition. Every day at the Center at least 30 schoolchildren got acquainted with the Energy Efficiency, Climate and Waste Expositions. In total, more than 600 schoolchildren and teachers from Moscow, Kaluga, Vladimir, Yaroslavl took part in excursions and practical exercises.

The Decade of Energy and Resource Conservation program at School No. 2129 in Moscow was organized and conducted by a group of teachers and schoolchildren under the leadership of Lydia Povzikova. The entire school actively participated in the Decade of Energy and Resource Conservation:

• Pupils of grades 8-10 independently prepared eco-lessons and master classes, using the literature and methodological recommendations of the SPARE Program. The senior classes paid special attention to the themes: "Climate", "Garbage", "Water as A Resource.” Classes were conducted "online."
• High school students prepared and conducted on-line extracurricular activities for 3-4 classes on the topic: “Why is it necessary to sort solid waste”; and for 2 grades - on the topic "Diverse plastic and its use".  For these lessons, high school students have collected visual sets: "Types of packaging for food" and "Plastic hazardous to health."
• Pupils of the 6th grade organized an "energy patrol". They conducted an energy audit of the school and designed the materials in the form of a poster.
• Pupils of the 5th grade participated in an interactive lesson on the theme "Nine" lives "of paper". Based on this lesson, the students prepared visual aids in which they presented various types of paper and information on their use.

All events of the Energy Saving Decade were attended by 5 administrators, 20 teachers, 514 students 8-16 years old. The school had a restricted movement regime in November 2021, so most of the events were held on the Zoom or MES platforms.

The Day of Energy Saving has become a bright, interesting, unusual holiday for students of the 1st "B" class of the secondary school № 25 in the city of Podolsk, Moscow region. These younger students have just begun to get acquainted with the thematic environmental activities of their school. But their teacher Anna Krat is an active participant in the SPARE program. Anna told the younger schoolchildren in detail about the SPARE Program and the Energy Saving Day, showed several videos that were created by Moscow schoolchildren for the Energy and Habitat project competition and offered to conduct many interesting and necessary activities in the classroom. The children supported her, and the Energy Saving Day lasted for a whole week. A lot has been done:

• Schoolchildren brought plastic and paper trash from the house. Children made 15 bird feeders and beautiful souvenirs from this waste material (plastic bottles, recycled cardboard and paper, juice boxes). The feeders were hung out within walking distance of the school and the first graders regularly feed and watch the birds! Crafts will be used for fine arts lessons.
• To save paper resources, students have assembled their own library in their class. Each child brought from home books that have already been read. Now other guys can read them too! The cool library already has over 100 interesting books!
• During Energy Saving Week, the students of this class spent all the lessons of the surrounding world and reading lessons in the schoolyard, turning off the lights in the class for this time and conserving electricity.
• During the classroom hour, the children discussed why it is important to save school supplies, fold school uniforms neatly so as not to waste energy on the iron, and use linen bags for replacement shoes instead of plastic bags. Anna Krat told the students where they can donate unnecessary toys, old clothes, spent batteries in the neighborhood of their school.
• After the Day of Energy Saving, the first graders decided to continue their energy and resource-saving activities: to collect plastic caps and waste paper, to assemble their own toy library in the classroom so as not to use gadgets during recess.

The private educational institution "Orthodox Education Center in the Name of the Holy Royal Martyrs" is located in the small village of Barkovo, Moscow Region. The Center’s administration, teachers, and schoolchildren have been actively participating in the SPARE program since 2011. The Center uses almost no plastic – the entire building is decorated with natural wood inside, all schoolchildren use reusable bags, in the school cafeteria and for summer camp they use reusable dishes and prepare natural food without purchased packaged fast food. Energy Saving Day this year was held at the Center on November 11-12 and special guests were invited: representatives of the local administration. The program was organized by the director of the Center for Education Poperechny S.V. and biology teacher Povzikova L.N.

On the first Day of Energy Saving, November 11, each class held lessons on saving water and energy, master classes on the correct sorting of solid household waste, watching thematic videos, contests for drawings, posters, energy-efficient crafts were organized; an exhibition of visual agitation was placed on staircases. A school energy audit was carried out and information was collected for the preparation of the Climate Plan.

On November 12, the second Energy Saving Day, the senior classes organized activities for the elementary school:

• Eighth graders prepared an extracurricular lesson for 3-4 grades on the topic “Why is it necessary to sort household waste? How to do it correctly? How to reduce the amount of garbage in the family? "
• Seventh graders held a master class for grades 1-2 on the topic "Multiple plastic and its use".  For this lesson, schoolchildren collected visual sets "Types of packaging for food" and "Plastic hazardous to health".
• Pupils of the 6th grade for the first graders conducted a lesson "How to save water".
• Pupils of the 5th grade took part in a master class on the theme "Nine Lives of Paper", where they made visual aids on the properties and use of different grades and types of paper.

All events were attended by 3 administrators, 3 employees of the school canteen, 10 teachers, 140 students in grades 1-8.

3. Debriefing phase:

Local reports and photographs from each program showed that Energy Saving Day 2021 was successful, despite the fact that for most of November, schoolchildren studied remotely or conducted educational activities online. The materials confirmed that more than 1,500 schoolchildren and about 300 teachers expanded their knowledge and learned new information about real opportunities to engage in climate preservation, energy efficiency and a waste-free life.