March 9, Vitebsk / Sergey Kochetov - BELTA /. Ten teams from 9 Belarusian universities will take part in the republican qualifying round of the international student Olympiad "Environmental Safety", which will be held on March 10-12 at the Vitebsk State University named after P. Masherov. This was reported to a BELTA correspondent by the International State Ecological University named after A.D. Sakharov. About 50 students studying in environmental specialties will gather in Vitebsk. The Olympiad program covers issues of environmental, radiation and energy safety, environmental monitoring, urbanization, major environmental threats in the modern world, as well as possible ways and methods to reduce environmental risk. The event will be held in two stages (theoretical and practical), during which participants will have to demonstrate their knowledge level by solving tasks and tests, as well as propose practical solutions to environmental problems. Students who show the highest results in individual standings will have the right to represent Belarus as part of the national team in the international round of the Olympiad, which will be held in May 2011 in Minsk. In addition to the Belarusian team, teams of students from universities in Russia and Ukraine will take part in the Olympiad. The International Student Olympiad "Environmental Safety" was established as a form of promoting environmental knowledge among youth. The goals of the Olympiad are to improve the quality of specialist training, popularize environmental knowledge, create conditions for supporting gifted young people, and form human resources in the field of environmental protection for research, design, scientific and production activities. The organizers of the Olympiad are the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection of Belarus, and the International State Ecological University named after A.D. Sakharov, which is the basic organization of the CIS states for environmental education.-0-

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