School: Uzhur District Additional Education School
    Uzhur, Krasnoyarsk Region, Russia

20 students, ages 10 to 15 worked together to complete this CyberFair project on March 20, 2019. They have participated in CyberFair in the following year(s): 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2016, 2017,2018

Classes and Teachers: Anna Bukhtoyarova (Ilyushenko)

E-Mail contact:

Our School's Web Site: http://

1. Description of Our Community

Let us present a small Siberian town Uzhur that is located more than 300 kilometers from Krasnoyarsk, the biggest city of the region. The main industry here is agricultural products that are distributed all over the region. The best dairy and meat products are made here. The town is by the federal way connecting regional capital Krasnoyarsk with the area of beautiful lakes. A lot of people driving through the city in summer to get to them. The city is developing into the future but at the same time keeping a lot of traditions from the past. We are in the middle of Siberia and Siberia is the heart of Russia.

2. Summary of Our Project

nspired by this year Cyberfair theme 'Envision and Unite' we decided to make a foresight research trying to figure out the future scenarios for our community. We ambitiously want to look at Uzhur in 2050 so that big trends in development would become visible. We understand that there could be different scenarios both positive and negative. So we engage our vivid imagination in thinking about any kinds of change that could happen with our community. To attract more community members to the discussion we organized a picture competition on the topic for younger students of our school and even interested children from other schools because in 2050 this will be there world and their city. We tried to make them think how can children influence the future to achieve the best possible scenario.

3. Our Computer and Internet Access

A. Percentage of students using the Internet at home:more than 50%

B. Number of workstations with Internet access in the classroom:4-6

C. Connection speed used in the classroom:dedicated connection

D. Number of years our classroom has been connected to the Internet:more than 6

E. Additional comments concerning your computer and/or Internet access (Optional):

The computers that the students were using at our school mostly have software that is rather outdated. As the school has no funding to update the versions to the new ones we decided to choose web based open tools.

4. Problems We Had To Overcome

For many the students it was the first experience in web design and international project management. It took some learning to acquire research techniques and source citing ethics. Most of the students are under thirteen and they go to different public schools meeting for the project at the weekend. So it was their first experience in project team building. There is no material on the topic so students had to come up with all the ideas and create all the materials.

5. Our Project Sound Bite

Imagining the future is something that helps us understand our present, past and themselves. As the world is getting global the trends in one community development has a lot in common with others. Our Future unites us!

6. How did your activities and research for this CyberFair Project support standards, required coursework and curriculum standards?

As our project is the Future of Uzhur the students learned a lot about research methods that can be applied for foresight research. For this project we managed to link local studies including local economy, ecology, architecture and urban studies. We managed to develop their skills of personal planning in the context of local community future development. When local studies are integrated with English and Web design it becomes more challenging and interesting for students. But he team had to learn a lot of new skills like web design and project planning based on the local studies. This task as well as the idea of “doing that for community” creates much better motivation for the topic itself.

1) What information tools & technologies did you used to complete your CyberFair project?

As the school has no funding to update the software we decided to choose web based open tools. Google Sites tool was chosen because it was simple enough for the students first experience and of course because it was free. The major challenge for the students turned out to be the difference between the IT tools they use at school and the ones they have at home. So to be successful they had to learn multiple tools with the same functions understanding the principles of their work.

2) In what ways did you act as "ambassadors" and spokespersons for your CyberFair project both on-line and in person.

The world is changing rapidly and every community in almost every country has to face the challenges related to this process. Traditional communities often try to avoid thinking about the changes assuming that they are going to be minor and there is no need to consider them in advance. But our ongoing experiences show us that we need to prepare themselves and especially younger members of any communities so that they would be able to successfully adjust to new conditions of life. And the first step is talking about it in playful manner like 'what if...' We think communities throughout the world should start talking about it with each other to plan our future together.

3) What has been the impact of your project on your community?

Future is something that every member of community is interested in. So we decided to involve families and friends in wider discussion on the topic. To do that students created a survey in the most popular Russian social network VK.COM to ask community members about their vision of the future. Students performed a number of interview with people of different ways of life to ask them on the details of their perspectives on the future.To encourage younger students and their friends think about the future of our community we organized a picture competition to collect visual images of the future. Every participating student had to write a short description of their vision shown for his/her picture to formulate how they see Uzhur in 2015. The project activities coursed an interesting wider discussion on local community future.

4) How did your project involve other members of your community as helpers and volunteers?

Our community members got very interested in the idea. Some of them volunteered as interviewees for the student reporters. Many wrote a number of useful comments in the social network. Younger ones enjoyed participating in picture completion. The project managed to open wider discussion on how the future trends would influence our community in a long-term perspective.

5) Discoveries, Lessons and Surprises (Optional)

We have discovered that it is really challenging to try to foresee the future for our local community! People do not usually think that far concentrating mostly on their every day routines. Even when think of their future they either consider personal future or global issues. But they seldom try to figure out future scenarios at the local community level. Even raising this question is very useful for encouraging people to see the future from productive prospective for community development.