The Regional Science Foundation has summed up the results of the competition for organizing events for vocational guidance of young people. Two projects of scientists of KSC SB RAS aimed at attracting schoolchildren to science have received support from the Foundation.

The vocational school-workshop "Professions of the Future" will be held in October this year.

The main idea of the event is to present to high school students the promising areas of research of Krasnoyarsk scientists, their connection with the sectors of economy, to show the competences and skills which will be in demand in the coming years. The concept of the event is based on the potential of science in Krasnoyarsk, its connection with high-tech enterprises operating on the territory of the Krasnoyarsk Region.

Schoolchildren will be introduced to the following development areas of science and technology related to the professions of the future: biotechnology, digital agriculture, creation of new composite materials and nanotechnology, and big data processing. These areas are peculiar because in Krasnoyarsk there is significant scientific and practical background for each of them, such as scientific projects supported by Russian scientific foundations, including the Regional Science Foundation. For each of the directions, a "package" of educational materials for schoolchildren will be prepared in the form of lectures and master classes.

Lectures including, among other things, a list of questions for self-control will be available online. Interactive master classes will be held offline in the Federal Research Center "Krasnoyarsk Science Center of the SB RAS".

The laboratory school “From schoolchildren to a scientist: the first steps” will start online on September, 1 and it will last for two months.

The main idea of the school, according to the head of the project, Candidate of Chemical Sciences, Dmitry Zimonin, is to involve schoolchildren in research activities, using the example of popular science lectures and demonstrative experiments, in order to familiarize them with the professional activities of scientists from FRC KSC SB RAS.

During the event, schoolchildren will get acquainted with the basics of organic and inorganic chemistry, study chemical processes which can be carried out in everyday life with the help of improvised materials, determine the relationship between the principles of molecular biology and the practical tasks of personalized medicine, learn to isolate DNA from various biological materials, and get acquainted with the latest advances in the study of the morphology of nanoscale objects.

“Despite the fact that recently among Russian schoolchildren there has been an increase in the popularity of professions related to high technologies and natural sciences, this sector of the economy still loses as compared to the priority of economic and humanitarian disciplines which was established in the late 90s and early 2000s. At the same time, the development of science and technology transforms the market for service jobs, and their content, but the traditional school often do not keep up with these changes. We hope that our events, supported by the Regional Science Foundation, will contribute to increasing the prestige of science and the involvement of young people in the field of high-tech research and development, ” - emphasizes the organizer of one of the events, head of the scientific communications group of the Federal Research Center “KSC SB RAS”, Candidate of Biological Sciences, Egor Zadereev.

A detailed schedule of the online and offline classes of the career guidance events of KSC SB RAS will be announced later.