On March 26, at the Daugavpils Innovation Center, the municipality of the Augšdaugava region, in cooperation with the association “Višķu įvėdaųi”, the Daugavpils Innovation Center and SIA “Daugavpils Water”, organized an environmental education competition on the topic of oil product pollution.
The purpose of the competition was to promote students’ understanding of the environment and its problems, to activate and expand environmental education work in educational institutions, thus developing students’ research work and presentation skills, as well as to stimulate students’ interest in the study of water pollution and related risks. The target audience of the competition is 5th – 9th grade students of the general educational institutions of the Upper Daugava region and the city of Daugavpils. In total, 12 teams participated in the competition – 6 teams from the Upper Daugava region and 6 teams from the educational institutions of the Daugavpils state city.
The participants were addressed by the executive director of the municipality of the Upper Daugava region, Pēteris Dzalbe, stating that it is important to participate in such competitions in order to understand and reflect on one’s actions in the context of environmental issues.
In the environmental education competition, the participants presented their research on the causes of oil product pollution, the impact of pollution on the ecosystems of surface water bodies, oil product leakage accidents that occurred in Latvia and its borders, signs that indicate oil product pollution, the surface water body they chose in their parish in the practical part, in the county/city and modeling the situation if oil products leak into it.
All twelve teams had diligently prepared for the competition and conducted research on a variety of topics:
Daugavpils Iespieu High School participated in the competition with two teams and conducted research on the topics “Shunezer pollution with oil spill products” (school. Júlija Kanto) and “Oil spill and its problems” (school. Lolita Bindere), Daugavpils State City High School also participated with two team, presenting the research “Let’s save our lake and its inhabitants!” (school. Inga Kalviša) and “Possible threats and possibilities of spread in case of release of oil products in Daugavpils (Šūňupe)” (school. Galina Koreneva), J. Pilsudska Daugavpils State Polish Gymnasium team conducted a study “Possible threats and possibilities of spread in case of release of oil products in Daugavpils (In the hive lake)” (school. Galina Koreneva, Tatjana Guseva, Linda Ivana-Filipova), while the team of the Daugavpils Innovation Center studied “the pollution of Lake Gubišče by oil products as a result of the flooding of the gas station” (school. Júlija Kanto).
The educational institutions of the Augšdaugava region conducted research based on the water bodies in the immediate vicinity: the Saliena high school team presented the study “Moss – nature’s helper in water purification” (school. Anna Anisimova), the Zemgale high school team studied “Zemgale lake pollution with oil products and the associated risk research” (school. Jadviga Bobkova), while the Kalupes elementary school team presented a study on “Risks of oil pollution in the Kalupe River” (school. Rita Korženevska), the Lāči elementary school team – on “Modelling of the pollution of the pond of Locik village with oil products and ecological methods of environmental cleaning ” (school. Natalja Laitāne), the Naujenes elementary school team – on “Water pipe contamination with oil products” (school. Zinaida Pauliņa) and the Špoģi secondary school team presented a study on “Oil product pollution” (school. Iveta Grīne), based on a developed action plan , if a leak of oil products is detected in the Dubna river near the Špoģi secondary school.
After the presentations, the participants of the competition were addressed by the Deputy Head of the Latgale Regional Administration of VUGD, Head of the Fire Safety and Civil Protection Department, Dmitrijs Karpovs, briefly explaining how to act in various situations and introducing the new application developed by VUGD, which can help to respond faster if help is needed.
At the end of the event, the managing director of SIA “Daugavpils ūdas” Igors Prelatovs thanked all the participants and teachers for their work and invited them not to be shy to express their vision in their research, to use modern, up-to-date presentation tools.
In the competition 1st place was won by the team of the Zemgale secondary school of the Upper Daugava region, which in its research presentation was not only based on theoretical knowledge, but also clearly modeled the situation regarding the contamination of Lake Zemgale with oil products.
- place was won by the team of the Saliena secondary school of the Upper Daugava region, whose purpose of the experiment was to check whether the natural material – moss – is able to absorb car oil spills and reduce the pollution of water bodies, including the pollution of wells with oil products.
- place was obtained by one of the teams of the State City of Daugavpils, which modeled the situation in the selected surface water body (Šūņupė) in Daugavpils with possible threats and spread possibilities in the event of oil product discharge, taking into account the season, meteorological conditions, the amount of pollution entering the environment, the catchment area of the water object, the settlements located on the coast .
All the participants of the competition are winners, because they could not only deeply research and present their chosen topics, but also listen and gain new knowledge from the research of other teams.
Thanks to all participants for their interest, teachers for their help and educational institutions for their support.
The competition was organized under the Norwegian financial instrument 2014-2021 period program “Climate change mitigation, adaptation and environment” project no. NFI/AK/01 “Remediation of the historically polluted site “Viški Vocational High School fuel oil storage” in Viški Parish, Augšdaugava County”.
