As part of the All-Russian Festival NAUKA 0+ in Nizhny Novgorod on November 2, 2022, Elizaveta Dmitrievna Varakina, a 5th year student of the K. Minin NSPU and an external part-time worker at the IEE RAS under RSF grant No. 22-14-0258, conducted a master class "Water fleas (Crustacea: Cladocera) in the microscope lens" for schoolchildren in grades 9-10 of school No. 134. The master class was held at Discovery Nano Polar equipment and included an overview popular science lecture on cladocerans and a practical part, during which schoolchildren had the opportunity to independently study, using light microscopes, some species of cladocera from reservoirs located within the boundaries of Nizhny Novgorod. In addition, the lesson used new materials on modern and fossil cladocerans obtained by the team during the first year of the RSF project No. 22-14-0258. Unique data on the morphology of modern and fossil representatives of the genus Simocephalus Schödler, 1858 (Cladocera: Daphniidae) were personally obtained and processed by E.D. Varakina as part of an internship at the Laboratory of Ecology of Aquatic Communities and Invasions at the Room of Electron Microscopy of IEE RAS from August 1 to August 14, 2022.
Thus, at the site of the NAUKA 0+ festival, the latest data from fundamental research were demonstrated to a children's audience. The interest in the report and the enthusiastic responses of the participants allow us to hope that the children will continue to be interested in biology, paleontology and microscopy. And some of them will in the future continue their studies within one of these specialties. IEE RAS, K. Minin NGPU and Nizhny Novgorod School No. 134 reached an agreement on holding new classes. The main objectives of such lessons are to popularize scientific knowledge, involve children in research activities and strengthen the authority of fundamental science.
The presentation by E.D. Varakina can be found at the link:
https://cloud.mail.ru/public/wAUk/7yRxKGsaX
