The 5th LTT Meeting- Latvia, July 2022

Latvia was the fifth meeting of our project named Science In Our Hands; The meeting was held between 5th to 9th july  in Jaunpiebalga. The entire experience, both for the teachers and students, was a unique one; Latvia impressed us with it’s beauty and the warmth with which we were received by Velga Zarina -Romanova

On July 4th we arrived at the Plavnas Hotel where, again, we were pleasantly surprised by the beauty of Latvia and it’s people! On the 5th of July we had the pleasant surprise of meeting the headteacher of Jaunpiebalga Secondary School and after that we had a fun trip around the school and the school’s park and everything culminated in two workshops related to mathematics and learning about INCKAPE, a computer program with the help o whitch the students were able to cut souvenirs on cutter machine .  The second workshop catched the attention of our students the most; they remained pleasantly surprised and intrigued by what can be done using the computer program.

On the 6th of July we were surprised by new activities; perhaps the most interesting activity for our students was visiting the caramel factory where especially delicious artisanal candies were made. We walked in Teiču rezervāts mud trails and saw the town called Madona which impressed us with it’s perfect beauty through the dreamscapes and relaxing atmosphere. After that, we visited Gulbenes bānīti’s  depo where we had practical activities and of course had we took a ride with bānītis. And so ended the day of July 6th with the many activities we carried out that sparked the interest of our students and made them happy.

The 7th oh July was the day of visits; first, we arrived at Sigulda, a town in the Vidzeme region of Latvoa, 53 kilometres from the captal city of Riga . The castle at Sigulda impressed us because of the reddish devonian sandstone with formed steep rocks and caves on both banks of the Gauja River. Our students learned that Sigulda Castle it’s considered The Switzerland of Vidzeme, which delighted them unspeakably, remaining a piece of information that will light up in their memory for a long time. After visiting Sigulda Castle, we visited the city of Sigulda and after that we visited the Turaida Castle and Gūtmanis Cave. Delight for our students was visiting Tarzāns’s amusement park, which of course had as it’s main inspiration the beloved character from childhood stories-Tarzan. At the end of this wonderful day filled with all kinds of activities we returned to our hotel excited for the next day knowing that new activities will await us.

The 8th of July brought us new exciting activities; we met the local mayor, we visited  Jaunpiebalga church and climbed up the Viņķu kalns Tower. After that, we visited  Jaunpiebalga Art and Music School, we had a workshop at Jaunpiebalga Secondary School. We visited Ethnographical Museum “Vēveri” where we had a practical workshop based on baking traditional Latvian black bread. At the end of the day, we had the official dinner at the hotel.

Our last day in Latvia culminated with a trip to Riga, the capital and largest city in this country, where we observed that Riga centre also has many great examples of Gothic revival architecture, such as the Kalpaka Boulevard Library, and a bevy of Art Nouveau architecture, as well as a medieval old town. We visited the War Museum and Rīga Motormuseum, where we learned a little bit about cars and how they are made. We also had a trip to Baltic Sea Side ( called Baltā kāpa) and returned back to the hotel because the next day we had our departure.