Interfaculty dispute “Ecological consciousness in the traditional and modern culture of the Belarusians”

On October 31, 2017 an interfaculty dispute “Ecological consciousness in both traditional and modern culture of the Belarusians” was held for the second cycle education students of the Faculty of Foreign Languages, the Faculty of Psychological Sciences and Pedagogy and the Faculty of Philology of Educational Establishment “Brest State A.S. Pushkin University”. The dispute was arranged by Professor Shved I.A., the Head of the laboratory, and Associate Professor of the Department of Pedagogy Kovalevich M.S. Some students took part at the dispute as well.

Interfaculty dispute pursued the following objectives:

• building ecological consciousness at the specialists in the humanities as the most important part of their professional consciousness and integrity
• bringing respectto the nature and to the chosen profession
• bringing ecologically responsible personality
• creating certain “ecologically friendly” types of behavior of the future specialists conforming to the principals and objectives of the society developmentin the “nature-society-human-nature” system

The following reports were given during the event:

• “Ecological consciousness in the traditional Belarusian culture” (Reporter I.A. Shved)
• “The values of the biomedical and ecological ethics in the moral consciousness of the Belarusians: conflicts and complementarity” (Reporter M.S. Kovalevich)
• “The role of the modern ecologyin the solution of the global problems of the humanity” (Master's Degree student, the Department of the Russian Literature and Journalism of the Faculty of Philology, M. Kolesnik)

• “Birds at the traditional world view of the Belarusians” (Master's Degree Student, the Department of the Belarusian Philology of the Faculty of Philology, O. Gronskaya)
• “Snakes at the calendar customs and superstitions of the Belarusians” (The second year student of the Faculty of Philology O. Boychik)
• “Ecophilosophy about rehabilitation of the balance in the nature-human system” (The second year student of the Faculty of Philology N. Goncharova)

The following questions under discussion caused a special interest:

• Ecocentric mindset. Should we approve euthanasia, artificial abortion and disposal of disabled foetus?
• Experiments on people against their will: pro and con.
• Tests for individual genetic deceases have come into the USA market. There are those who want to know this kind of forecast and those who don’t. Comment on this experience.
• What are the ways to join the indispensable profits and different kinds of danger that the wild nature is all about?
• Is it true that at first sight the more ancient the history of the humans was, the more nature friendly humans used to be?

Students were expressing their opinion about different aspects of the problems of ecological consciousness and environmental behavior, necessity to live in harmony with the nature during the conversation. The problems of organization of comfortable life conditions both in the modern city and in wild nature environment were discussed at the dispute. The conclusions about the methods of building ecological consciousness at the youth and children in modern culture of the Belarusians were made.

Student Scientific and Research Club “Folklore Studies and Regional Ethnography"