Renewable energy at Roerich school in Bulgaria

Lyubov Dombeva teaches Biology in English in bilingual Roerich school in Sofia, Bulgaria. She is well aware of the extra difficulties for her students to be taught through the medium of English. Lyubov uses different language support tools like substitution tables. She also makes her students discuss controversial and important issues like genetically modified food, renewable energy and healthy eating habits, related to a Science Across the World topic. Lyubov picked up these techniques during the summer courses in Varna on the Black Sea (2001-2003), organised by the British Council with Keith Kelly (United Kingdom) as the expert in the field. Lyubov likes her school very much, she feels free to experiment with new methods and techniques, so she can take part in many international competition and projects.

Roerich school

Roerich school is named after the family of Roerich. In 1925 Nikolai Roerich (a Russian artist and philosopher) was the initiator of the Pact Roerich, an international treaty for protecting world cultural heritage and taking care of children victims of war conflicts. After his death in 1943 the Pact was further developed by the UN into UNESCO (1946). Nikolai, together with his wife Helena and their son tried to apply their ideas about education. They considered a school as an extended art/music school, so all kids grow up with art and music. Inspired by this philosophy Radka Karagiozova, a Bulgarian singer and English teacher co-founded the small private Roerich school. Two villas house the school in the outskirts of Sofia.

Exchange Form of the Month: Plants and me

Lyubov is actively involved in the Science Across the World programme. Four topics have been translated in Bulgarian (by colleagues from the FACT group (www.factworld.info) and Roerich school students: 'Acid rain', 'Keeping healthy', 'Renewable energy' and 'What did you eat?'.
In November 2005 one of her students' Exchange Forms' from the topic 'Plants and me' for students 10-13, was chosen as Exchange Form of the Month and announced as such in the left column on the homepage of Science Across the World. It is still available at www.scienceacross.com/media/docs/215/Roerich_plants_and_me_final.doc. The Exchange Form is composed by students from the fifth, sixth and seventh grade. This November another of her Exchange forms was distinguished, this time it was from 7th School ‘Sveti Sedmochislenitsi’. Lyubov worked in this state school since 2000 till November 2006 as a free lance teacher of biology in English. Says Lyubov: "I feel happy my work is appreciated, because students in most state schools are new to international collaboration projects. They enjoyed it taking part and they feel proud to have their work on the Science Across the World homepage as best example. I feel proud with them!

Solar Schools Forum ‘Renewable Energy’ competition

Ani Dobrinova, the head of the Bulgarian Solar Energy Society (BgISES is part of the International Solar Energy Society) with mainly architects and engineers and up till then no teachers and students asked Lyubov and Roerich School to take part and help organise the national Solar Schools Forum competition for students' works. Lyubov's task was to organise a school event: Energy Day (April 21, 2005), Roerich school issued a special edition of the school newspaper showing the best students works from the project, followed by Exhibition Day, in which in a national competition 33 schools from 11 towns took part in Sofia in the Earth and People Museum. In this Solar Schools Forum National Competition Lyubov's students won three first prizes: in the Art competition one in each age group and in the Science and Technology competition with the younger students (two age groups: 6-12 and 13-16). During the ELT conference May 2006 in Plovdiv Lyubov presented her students’ participation and their successes of the SSF project at national and international levels. The SSF website shows teaching resources on renewable energy in 11 European languages (http://ssf.ises.org/ssf/ssfIndex.xsp). In June 2006 price winners and participants were invited to Glasgow in Scotland, to attend the EuroSun 2006 conference to take part in workshops and sessions for students.

Dreams

Lyubov would like proper (larger) housing for the school. Roerich school received a new prize from the Bulgarian firm Ecotop to honour their three prizes: a solar panel to produce hot water. The panel hasn't been installed yet, because of a lacking permission of the owner of the private villa that houses the school.

Text: Lida Schoen
Pictures: Lyubov Dombeva, Lida Schoen

December 2006