Greenworks Ukraine: Clean Rivers

Greetings all,

I hope the fall season has been treating you well so far.  We spent the tail end of the summer season visiting our various Greenworks partners, including the Clean Rivers project in Ukraine.  We started our visit in Lviv, where we conducted a weeklong teacher development workshop with teachers from Lviv Polytechnic and Lviv National University, where we reviewed active learning methodologies and the Project Design curriculum.

Afterwards, we spent a week out in the field in Kamianets-Podilskyi (near the Moldova border) and Bolekhiv (in the Carpathian Mountains).  In both locations we explored geotourism attractions and cultural centers and schools that are working to incorporate more geology and Earth system science into their activities.  We were able to see the impacts of the Clean Rivers project in the Sukel' River valley.  Additionally, we interacted with many artists in the area to better understand how they incorporate geology into their art and discuss future art-science collaborative opportunities for education.

The most moving experience was meeting with village elders in the village of Bukovets' after church on our last Sunday there.  In the Latin American extension model, field projects are built in close conversation and collaboration with local villages, which tends to be uncommon in Europe and the US.  By bringing this model to our Ukrainian project, we were able to reveal a new perspective for our teacher partners.  They were moved by the conversations, which covered the Germanic history of the village, the inequity of the foresty industry in the area, the loss of beloved children and grandchildren to war, and their own relationships with the water and rocks of the area.  Moving forward, the teachers and their students are aiming to have many more conversations with the villages to better help them develop the Clean Rivers project.

Giving Tuesday is coming up December 2nd, right after Thanksgiving.  We're working to top off the Clean Rivers fund for our colleagues for 2026.  I hope you'll consider donating on that day, when your donation will be partially matched.  Of course, donations are welcome any time, as they have helped make this extraordinary work possible over the past couple of years.

With gratitude,

Lev

Greetings all!

Thank you for your generous donation to our project.  We've got a number of updates to share, but first, there's a 100% matching opportunity on this project RIGHT NOW, if you wish to renew your contribution.  All donations will be doubled and will help us support our Ukrainian colleagues in 2026.

Since our last update, the Lviv Polytechnic team has conducted several more excursions to the Carpathian Mountains, both with and without students.  The purpose of the most recent work has been to identify more geological landforms and their relationship with the Sukel' River, as well as to document the existing geotourism infrastructure.  Additionally, they have been bringing students out into the field to train them how to conduct fieldwork, sample river waters, and identify and map pollution sources.

Over the past month, we have also run our Project Design curriculum with undergraduate and graduate students at Lviv Polytechnic and Ivan Franko National in Lviv.  Students included geology, geography, and museum and tourism studies students.  Professors and students met in-person weekly to learn about project lifecycles, including how to talk to stakeholders in the field to understand their priorities, how to identify important research questions to ask when designing a project, and budgeting and scheduling the work for the project.  Over the next few weeks, to finalize the course, students will write their own project proposals for expanding the Clean Rivers project, which your donations can support!

We're looking forward to lot more exciting updates on this project, and hope we can count on your support to keep it going, especially with a 100% on all donations right now!

With gratitude,

Lev