Within a scope of the Forum, the II All-Russian Baikal Scientific and Practical Conference of school students “Opening up the Horizons” was held on the basis and with the organizational support of the I.I. Molchanov-Sibirsky Irkutsk State Regional Universal Library on March 16 and 17. School students of grades 5-11 from the cities of Irkutsk, Krasnoyarsk, Shelekhov, Angarsk, Zelenogorsk, Murmansk, Snezhnogorsk, Izhevsk, Nizhny Tagil, Biysk and Moscow participated in the Conference (total 103 students). In the course of the Conference, 22 participants presented their work distantly via online broadcast, 81 students spoke in person at the sections "Ecology", "Botany", "Chemistry and Life", "Baikal Studies and Water Projects", "Zoology", "Local History" and " Social and environmental projects, human health”. The members of the expert commission were the practitioners in the fields of science that were represented at the Conference: researchers from the Limnological Institute of the SB RAS, the Siberian Institute of Plant Physiology and Biochemistry of the SB RAS, as well as employees of the Pedagogical Institute of ISU, Municipal Budget Institution of Culture "A.M. Sibiryakov Museum of the History of Irkutsk, N.N. Muravyov-Amursky Irkutsk Regional Museum of Local Lore, and Irkutsk Medical State University.

Within a scope of the I Baikal Scientific Forum, 18 students from Irkutsk and Angarsk, who passed through competitive selection, took part in a Scientific School, which was held on March 25-27. The program of the School included the expedition to the station of the LIN SB RAS in the village of Listvyanka. During the expedition, the methods of sampling water using a bathometer, phytoplankton and zooplankton using the Jedi net were practiced. Subglacial communities of Lake Baikal were sampled with the assistance of a diver. A microscopic analysis of the collected material and culture of bacteria was carried out after sampling. On March 26 and 27, the program of the Scientific School included classes on statistical processing of biological data, lectures on the species diversity of the flora and fauna of Baikal, on the ecological state of Baikal which were held on the basis of the LIN SB RAS, and excursions to the Aquarium Complex of the LIN SB RAS.

We wish all participants of the Forum new research and discoveries and see you next year!