Academy of Modern Education - a group of several school establishments - is the first establishment in Ukraine that joined the Eco-School Programmes in 2018.
Schools under this Academy work towards implementation of SDGs in their educative curriculums which include learning plans, even for the youngest students. This strategy became the basis of the whole Academy vision under the umbrella of its creator Kan Development.
Following Eco-Schools 7 steps strategy, some Academy schools like Primary School A+ (Початкова школа А+) and Gymnasium A+ situated in Kyiv decided to raise student’s awareness of current environmental issues in Kyiv megalopolis.
In addition, Academy Primary School systematically devoted its traditional annual autumn "Academy of Smart Owls" brain Festival. The festival was an inter-grade contest of student’s projects on modern anthropogenic challenges for the planet, country and Kyiv city, doing its essential component of Eco-Schools implementation.
Last year, the Festival was devoted to students understanding of global threats - named "Stop Global Pollution". Up to 10 grades of Primary School exhibited their projects, prepared with the help of teachers and members of the Eco-Committee. Presentations were delivered for the whole bunch of students of both schools in the largest and fully crowded auditory room of Gymnasium A+.
This year, on November 11, 3rd and 4th-grade students presented up to 10 projects to the Fifth Annual Session of "Academy of Smart Owls" in a row, called "Kid's vision of future eco-city". Taking into account all restrictions of COVID times, presentations were separated by time and done one after another at the same room of Gymnasium A+ with the opportunity to make all projects visible for all reporting parties and interested visitors.
Preparation of 2019 and 2020 Smart Owls projects became a strong motivation for students to deeper immerse in environmental issues and follow 7 Steps strategy, as each project was hand made by the students from the entire class. In general, such creative approach to implementation of Eco-Schools ideology is new for education in Ukraine and became possible exclusively due to the Academy educative environmental strategy and personal efforts of Academy Primary School teachers and environmental coaches: Tatjana Kurmaz and Olga Tymonova.
Academy of Modern Education could be referenced as a leading educative institution in Ukraine, doing enormous efforts in bringing the best international approaches in education, including Eco-Schools, to local reality.