Education

Education>Crane Celebration

Re-activated in 2000, the Crane Working Group of Eurasia initiated and organized Crane Celebrations in 2002-2004.

For Crane Celebration activity education materials including pins, stickers, brochures, the booklet “101 Questions about Cranes” by Professor Vladimir Flint, and Manual for Crane Celebration - were produced and distributed.

In 2003, an educational event named “The Crane Day” was held at 29 sites in Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Ukraine and Belarus thanks to the financial support of Convention on Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS), a Lufthanza Air Company and UNEP/GEF Siberian Crane Wetlands Project . The organizers aimed at raising public awareness of cranes as the most rare and endangered group of birds and the necessity of certain conservation measures to preserve them.

Special attention was paid to the territories located within Siberian Crane range. Therefore, the celebration took place in the town of Salekhard (Western Siberia, which contains the breeding grounds of the western population) and in Chokurdah settlement (Yakutia) in the immediate vicinity of the breeding grounds of the eastern population. The celebration was also held along the migration route of the white crane: in Khingansky, Daursky, and Astrakhansky Reserves, in Muravjovski park of stable development (Russia), in Kustanay area (Kazakhstan) and in Tashkent (Uzbekistan). In Uzbekistan, the event was fully devoted to the problem of Siberian Crane conservation. An excellent Crane Day Celebration was held in Oka State Biosphere Nature Reserve where the Oka Crane Breeding Center is situated.

The dates of the celebration were not the same in different areas but for the most part the events took place on 7 and 14 September.

According to the information from the reports, the celebration has gone well. Most of the participants were children from the young ones to teenagers as well as college students. In some places, representatives of the local authorities also took part in the celebration. Local press and television made reports on celebrations held in Kustanay area (Kazakhstan), Daursky State Nature Reserve (Chita Region) and Khingansky State Nature Reserve (Amur Region).

The forms of the celebration were also different depending on the region and the creative imagination of its organizers. In the majority of rural regions, the event, which included theatrical performances, contests, poems and songs about cranes, also incorporated excursions to the fields where flocks of cranes gather before migration. The children not only admired these remarkable birds, but also took part in counts thus helping ornithologists who work in those regions a lot.

Almost everywhere, there were drawing competitions. Many organizations sent the drawings they had collected to the Crane Working Group of Eurasia to hold a general drawing competition and to select the best works for a future exhibition.

It is very encouraging to find among these materials verses and stories composed by children. Obviously, the children tried hard and were captivated by the subject.

In some places, the celebration was accompanied by ecological games, which added a lot of interest to the event, and helped children to form better understanding of the processes, which take place in nature.