The International Baltic Sea Web Quiz guides students to explore their home numbers online

Tartu Nature House
PRESS RELEASE
15.10.2020

The International Baltic Sea Web Quiz guides students to explore their home numbers online

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The Baltic Sea Online Quiz is taking place for the eighth time and is attended by almost 1,200 schoolchildren from nine countries bordering the Baltic Sea. All students of Estonian general education and hobby schools aged 10-19 are also invited to participate. The aim of the quiz is to draw attention to the biota and ecological problem areas of the Baltic Sea and to develop students’ environmentally conscious way of thinking.

The Baltic Sea Project of the UNESCO Joint Schools Network invites teachers and students to take part in an annual Baltic Sea online quiz. The quiz is a method that can be easily integrated into the science syllabus and can also be used in distance learning.

In addition to new knowledge, the online quiz allows students to develop their independent information retrieval skills, because the quiz is not a memory game – you don’t have to know the answers by heart, but you can search and analyze the web yourself. Intra-class collaboration to reach quiz solutions is also not excluded. “The aim is to improve students’ critical thinking skills, which helps them to distinguish the important from the less important in the abundance of information – this skill is becoming more and more necessary today,” comments Gedy Matisen, who coordinates the UNESCO Baltic School Project in Tartu Nature House. As the quiz is international and in English, the student can also expand their foreign language vocabulary.

The online quiz is supported by the Ministry of Education and Research, and questions have been collected from teachers, coordinators, research institutions and partners in the network from the nine countries that have joined the network. For example, this year the Estonian Environmental Agency and MTÜ Mondo also formulated questions.

To participate in the quiz, you definitely need an internet connection and well-functioning computer equipment, it takes 30-60 minutes, depending on the age group. The quiz is open to all schools from 4-12. students, but only member schools of the UNESCO Joint Schools Network will participate in the prize draw. The quiz can be taken, for example, in a school computer class in an English, geography or biology class. It is important to know that the questions must be answered in a certain order and you cannot change your answer.