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Three cities are to host STEAM FEST, an online science and career guidance festival for schoolchildren

17 november 2021

STEAM FEST, an educational festival for schoolchildren with a focus on natural sciences, will be taking place in Tobolsk, Noyabrsk and Pyt-Yakh on December 2 through December 12. The fest’s attendees will get to take part in fascinating interactive classes in math, physics, chemistry, programming as well as drama and public speaking master classes, and a career guidance program. The festival will be held online. The project is being implemented with the support of SIBUR as part of the latter’s Formula for Good Deeds social investment program.

STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, mathematics) represents a contemporary approach to education amalgamating these five disciplines into a single learning framework. The festival’s program includes more than 70 classes on these subjects including lectures, masterclasses, educational games and talks by various subject matter experts designed to help children get familiar with the most sought-after professions of today and tomorrow, and acquire new knowledge and skills that will come useful in their future studies and up their chances at successfully enrolling in college. To view STEAM FEST’s program and sign up for its events, visit http://steamfest.ru/. The festival will be held on December 2-5 and December 9-12.

The festival has partnered with well-known educational projects and schools such as ITgenio, Foxford, Smart Cities, the Children's (Polytechnic) University, New School, Moscow State University of Psychology and Education, the School of Micematics by Zhenya Katz, Little Plane Design Bureau, and Soyuzmultfilm.

The festival’s events target children of various ages, with some of them suitable to be attended by one’s whole family. Prior to the festival’s launch, some 8,000 school students from Tobolsk, Noyabrsk and Pyt-Yakh will receive invitation sets complete with materials that they will need to take part in their intellectual games and master classes. STEAM FEST’s organizers have put together many activities where one will be able to both think and do handiwork, starting with Mathematics with Scissors to masterclasses dedicated to origami and 3D polyhedron models designed to introduce their participants to the basics of geometry and stereometry. Lovers of puzzles will be offered a master class on fast assembly of the Rubik's cube delivered by the multiple winner of Russian championships.

High school seniors will be offered a chance to take STEAM FEST’s career guidance test and, by working with a psychologist, decode test results in order to outline their potential career path. Some of the events will focus on the development of soft skills. As an example, the fest’s public speaking and drama classes led by Polina Raikina, a professor with Konstantin Raikin’s Drama School, will offer their attendees an opportunity to try their hand at public speaking, to learn how to actively use their vocabulary and to be entertaining conversationalists.

The festival will also feature a virtual tour of SIBUR. School students will get to see how the company's production facilities and administrative offices operate, and will get an answer to the question of how one can become a part of the company's big team.

Science and technology have been developing incredibly fast. In order to be able to stay up to speed, to use modern parlance, one needs, as Alice from the eponymous book did, to run twice as fast. The field of education is experiencing a digital and science boom: we’re witnessing an arrival of a huge number of new schools including those run in an online format, various projects to popularize science, and digital technology courses targeting specifically a younger audience. And this is wonderful because the more we invest in a child’s education during their formation years the greater are their chances of having a stellar career and being sought after in the labor market. SIBUR has been supportive of this trend toward continuous development and self-improvement because it is interested in future professionals who in 10 to 15 years’ time will be in charge of running digital manufacturing, will develop and implement advanced technological solutions, Elena Belskaya, Head of Department for Government Relations and Social and Economic Projects at ZapsibNeftekhim, noted.

On top of solid fundamental knowledge, modern digital manufacturing needs one to have the knack for thinking creatively and for continuous development. We hope that STEAM FEST will not only provide children with new knowledge and skills that would come in handy in their studies and lives, but will also give them tools for discovering their calling and continuing to advance professionally, Sergey Vinokhodov, Advisor to the General Director of SiburTyumenGaz JSC, commented.