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Department of geography and methods of teaching geography

  • 17 April 2018, 08:28
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Establishment of the Geography Department  began in 1919, when the teachers training in the natural-geographical cycle of disciplines began as part of the Vyatka Institute of Public Education. Then the Department of Geology and Soil Science was established. It was headed by the prominent scientist-mineralogist Zemyatchenskii Peter Andreevich (Professor of St. Petersburg University, students and associates of the outstanding scientist V.V.Dokuchaev, corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences. This department functioned until 1941.

Department of Geography as part of an independent geographical faculty was founded in 1934, during the structure reform in the Vyatka Pedagogical Institute. It  was headed by prof. V.A.Tanaevsky (1934-1937)

The Department was divided into two separate structural units (physical and economic geography) in 1937.

The name of Stepan Leontievich Scheklein is associated with the long development of the Physical Geography Department in the pre-war period  from 1938 to 1941, and in the post-war years  from 1945 to 1956. S.L. Scheklein was Professor, Doctor of Agricultural Sciences, an active soil researcher in the Vyatka region.

Among the leaders of the Department of Physical Geography was Nikolai Nikolaevich Eremin (1984-1991), PhD, a participant and head of the drifting research station North Pole - SP-6, SP-19, the head of Antarctic station "Novolazarevskaya".

Professor Mikhail Pakhomov, and A. M. Prokashev - the initiators of the scientific laboratory of landscape evolution and natural environments, as well as schools of evolutionary geography and soil science and soil genesis.

In 2000, the Department of Physical and Economic

geography were united into the Geography and methods of teaching geography Department.

In 1993, the postgraduate course in the direction "Geomorphology and evolutionary geography" was opened. It was headed by the Doctor of Geological Sciences, prof. M. M. Pakhomov. He is one of the initiators of the paleogeographical study of the territory of the Vyatka-Kama region. The research laboratory of the Environment Evolution was created 1996 under his leadership (now it is integrated with the Laboratory of Landscape Studies).

In 2007, on the basis of landscape studies and geography of soils research laboratory, a second postgraduate course was opened  in the direction "Physical geography, biogeography, geography of soils and geochemistry of landscapes", headed by Dr.sc.agr., Professor  A.M. Prokashev.

The main directions of the laboratory headed by prof. M.M.Pakhomov are paleogeography of the Quaternary period, history of flora and vegetation, retrospective reconstruction of nature in connection with climate change in the Pleistocene.  Series of Ph.D. theses have been successfully defended In this direction.

M.M. Pakhomov was awarded with medal "For Contribution to the Development of Russian Science" (2008) by the decision of the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Natural History.

The scientific theme of the Laboratory of Landscape Studies and Geography of Soils, headed by prof. A.M. Prokashev, is focused on the study of spatial organization and geochemistry of landscapes, soils and soil cover structure of the Vyatka-Kamsky  Cis-Ural region problems. Recently teachers and graduate students have been working on studying the landscapes of the specially protected natural areas of the Vyatka Kama region, the genesis and evolution of soils with relic phenomena, spatial organization and anthropogenic transformation of the soil cover, and the geochemistry of problematic surface deposits of this region in this laboratory.  The result of their work was the defense of dissertations.

A number of grants funded by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, the Russian Geographical Society, VyatGU and other funds have been implemented within the framework of the fundamental research directions of the teaching staff and post-graduate students of the department, since the end of the 1990s.

Recently, the collective of geographers has been purposefully working on the general topic "Nature, economy and geoecological state of the Kirov region". To solve scientific problems annual expeditionary surveys of Vyatka region are organized by employees, graduate students and students

Within this work research on didactics, theory and methods of teaching in higher and secondary schools are being done.

The results of recent decades' research have been reflected in a series of textbooks and teaching aids for the university and school, monographic scientific works.

Annually many dozens of articles and materials of scientific conferences of various levels are published, including publications indexed by RINC, VAK and Scopus.

During the period from 2008 to 2015, the staff on the basis of the department also organized and conducted 5 scientific geographical conferences of the All-Russian and regional levels, including with the financial support of the Russian Foundation for Basic Research. The annual participation of teachers, graduate students and students is traditional in the scientific conferences of the All-Russia and other level.

The staff of the Geography Department pays much attention for rendering assistance to geography teachers by organizing annual scientific and methodological conferences, olympiads, pedagogical sites on the basis of a number of rural schools, research projects and scientific and practical conferences with teachers and students on the topics "Nature and Society", "Name of Green on the map of the Motherland. "

2016 was important in the history of the department in, when the Base University of the Kirov region, VyatkaSU was established on the basis of the two leading universities of the region. During the restructuring, the department was again called "Geography and methods of teaching geography" (GMTG)

 

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