Contests Hosted by Czech Union for Nature Conservation Again Attract More than 5,000 Pupils from Primary and Secondary Schools
(Prague, 14 September 2016) As every year, so this year too, the new school term marks the go-ahead for the life-science contests organized by the Czech Union for Nature Conservation. The Environmental Olympics, aimed at secondary school students (and going into its 22ndyear), tests the knowledge of six hundred students. Upping the ante, the Golden Leaf (which has been awarded for 45 years, and which is designed for primary schools) admits no fewer than four and a half thousand participants. Both contests enjoy a regular presence across all regions in the Czech Republic, and the best of the best from the regional rounds advance to the national rounds in June, which then produce the winners of the year.
“The Golden Leaf and the Environmental Olympics aim much higher than merely to find the best contestants,” says Luděk Hrnčíř, the national coordinator of both contests, adding that “our wish is, above all, to entice children to study nature (and, maybe, natural sciences at a college or university later on), to create opportunities to meet with similarly inclined enthusiasts, and to kindle an interest in learning about nature in its greater context.” While the contest is coordinated on a national level by employees of the office of the Young Environmentalists' Association(a youth interest group attached to the ČSOP), the bulk of the organizational work rests on the shoulders of volunteers – hundreds upon hundreds of them in every region each year.
The organizers of these contests long ago earned the right to call them a mainstay of environmental education, given the impressive number of years they both have been running, but at the same time, both events are pioneering in their approach, rather than wedded to tradition, and have proudly taken the vanguard of current educational trends. The stress is less on academic prowess than on the application of skills and knowledge to real-life situations (in the case of middle school students), or at least on a contextual understanding of issues (in the case of younger students). The team character of both contests also plays an important role: teams of three members compete in the Environmental Olympics, and teams of six in the Golden Leaf contest.
This is an open contest, and extremely easy to sign up for, with the only limitation being the capacity of individual rounds. The contests' respective websites, provide a list of the coordinators of the regional rounds. Some of them may be entered directly, while others only by first passing the hurdle of the basic rounds. Teams may be put together by the school or any other organization working with children (DDM Children and Youth Centres, individual units of youth organizations, etc.).
The contests are co-hosted (and co-financed) by the Ministry of Education, Youth, and Sports. The close connection and collaboration with the general partner of the ČSOPcontests –NET4GAS, s.r.o. –long ago became a fixture in everyone's mind. No less important is the support extended by the state-owned forestry company Lesy České republiky, s.p.and the State Environmental Fund.
More information is available from the contest coordinator:
Luděk Hrnčíř, Telephone No.: 775 724545, e-mail:
For more information on the contests, please visit the websites and
General Partner of the Environmental Olympics Partners of the Environmental Olympics