Father Frost from Bryansk made friends with the SPARE climate program

Authors: Valentina I. Yakushenko -  the Headmaster  of  the Gymnasium No.1  of  Bryansk district

Ludmila S. Zhirina  -  the regional SPARE coordinator.

Translator:  Marina Shelkunova - Teacher of foreign languages at the Gymnasium No.1  of  Bryansk district

In December 2021, twelve (12) kindergartens of the Bryansk district of the Bryansk region submitted their scenarios for ecological New Year's children’s party to the competition. Educators and children used SPARE materials for the programs "Zero waste", "Climate Change", "Energy Conservation", "Let's turn waste into resources". In each kindergarten, children made crafts, and parents sewed fancy costumes from waste or recycled materials.

The kindergarten “Yolochka” from Glinischevo devoted the entire children's New Year's party to introducing children and parents to the SPARE climate program . The motto of the event was the words of a huge poster: "Participation in the international school project for the use of resources and energy (SPARE) with the whole family!". The Headteacher  Olga Kaposhko and the senior educator Marina Golysheva   organized and held a bright and informative event with the participation of Father Frost, Snow Maiden, dwarfs, animals, birds, plants and traditional children's characters: Alyonushka and  Brother Ivanushka.

The New Year's performance told about the SPARE program, about global warming and other climate changes on the planet and in our region; about the negative influence of garbage dumps on animals and birds.

A whole group of children represented a variety of tiger cubs - the symbol of 2022. They told all participants and viewers that 9 subspecies of tigers lived on the planet for 2-3 million years: Malay, Amur, Bengal, Sumatran, South Chinese, Indochinese, Caspian, Balinese and Javanese tigers. But in just a few decades of the 20th century, three subspecies were exterminated by man, or died out themselves due to the destruction of their habitat.

In the art show, children presented tiger cubs from the smallest: Sumatran - 70-100 kg in weight to the largest Amur and Bengal tigers weighing 300 kg. In songs, poems, dramatizations, children told where tigers live, what troubles global climate change brings them and how a person can save them.

For example, the Amur tiger complained that with global warming, taiga forests in its places of residence are increasingly burning. Every year in the Russian Far East, a tiger patch with an area of about 30,000 hectares disappears every three years. In addition, climate change has brought an uneven snowfall. The high snow cover does not allow wild boars, roe deer, deer to find grass for food and they die of hunger. But tigers feed on these animals. Their death is a lack of food for predators. Hunger forces tigers to go out to rural villages and steal pets, threaten people or start migrating to the north.

And Bengal tigers complained that they live in the mangrove forests of India, which are located in the lowlands. If, with global warming, the ocean water rises and floods these territories, then these tigers will simply drown if they do not have time to migrate.

Brown bear said that climate change knocks down phenological rhythms, and many bears do not go to bed in winter or wake up early. But they can't find enough food (herbs, berries, mushrooms) at this time. Therefore, they begin to eat in urban landfills and threaten people, or they also go to live further to the north.

A wide variety of forest and floodplain birds complained to the children that the climate determines the behavioral aspects in the life of birds. Departures, flights, hibernation, migration processes, relationships between different species are regulated by climatic rhythms. This has been working for millennia, but now every year is warmer than the previous one. And the birds suffer and die.

For example, because of the early warm spring, the pied flycatcher birds began to return from Africa to Europe earlier. But this time for them there is not enough food: different caterpillars and worms. Therefore, birds begin a strong conflict, fights with stronger tits. Many pied flycatchers die.

In autumn, the processes of birds' departure to warmer climes began to be disrupted. The children themselves remembered that in warm November finches, buntings and warblers were in no hurry to fly to the south, but bullfinches had already arrived from the north, and the birds began to struggle for food.

More and more species of birds in our region have turned from migratory to sedentary and winter in Bryansk: rooks, ducks, even sometimes swans. This is due to the fact that winters are becoming shorter and warmer. Birds believe that it is not worth wasting energy on a long flight. They hope to feed themselves in a short cold period.

All together, the children participated in the production of a fragment of the fairy tale "Gray Neck" by D. Mamin - Sibiryak and compared climatic changes.

Father Frost, Snow Maiden and dwarfs told that it is people who have a negative impact on the climate change. And that every family should participate in the programs, "Zero waste", "Resource and energy conservation" and try not to create additional greenhouse gases. The children will learn how to do it during some business games in 2022.

The video materials of this children’s  party was shown to all the  kindergartens of the region and to the parents from Glinischevo.