Cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov and Oleg Artemyev talked with KFU and Artek Camp from their workplace.
The participants got acquainted with a unique educational project titled “Geography Lessons from the Orbit”, which involves KFU experts. The cosmonauts make photos of the Earth from the ISS. Today, they showed some technological aspects of that process.
Anton Shkaplerov, who was born in Crimea (where Artek Camp is located), talked about the geography of the peninsula, the ongoing Crimean Bridge project, and some other cities of the south of Russia. The cosmonauts lamented the huge impact that economic activity has on our planet. They can see those changes in their photos. In particular, they noted that environmental situation in Tatarstan has not become worse, which may indicate the high level of attention given to environmental protection in the local economy.
The Geography Lessons project is a joint endeavor by KFU, Energia Corporation, and the Institute of Geography, Russian Academy of Sciences. The project will wrap up in 2020. So far, four sections of the course have been finished – Mountains, Lakes, Snow and Glaciers, and Population and Demographics of the World. Every section contains 150 to 200 space photos with comments by scientists from Kazan and Moscow.
Overall, 20 thematic sections are planned for all topics of the secondary school curriculum in geography. On KFU’s side, the work is handled by the Space Management of Territorial Development Lab, headed by Professor Mikhail Panasyuk.
After the teleconference, he commented, “We witnessed a truly historic event today – Kazan Federal University established communication with the International Space Station for the first time. Our Lab has become a key participant of the Geography Lessons from the Orbit project. We have invited prominent experts from Energia Corporation and the Institute of Geography.”