The traditional summer camp project “Yakut International Research School-2021” (YIRS-2021) was held at the premises of the Sakha Junior Science Academy. This year high school students from our republic took part in the event. The children’s summer was fruitful and eventful, they attended various lectures, subject contests, and field-specific courses. At the end of the camp, young researchers defended projects in their fields.
What challenges and prospects do researchers face in the Arctic region? What high-tech innovations can change our lives? These and other relevant questions were answered by children from YIRS-2021. Let’s take a look.
Space research. One may think of it as a futuristic field, which strays far from reality. But if we just scroll through the news, we will find SpaceX that developed a prototype spacecraft for flights to Mars, or come across the founders of Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin who flew into space in the battle for leadership in space tourism. In this field, the children created their own rocket model and performed a flight simulation in the OpenRocket program. Then, based on the design of the model, they assembled real rockets and conducted a test launch. During the experiment, young researchers’ rocket reached a speed of 50 m/s and the apogee (the most distant point from the Earth) of 12 meters, which is lower than the height provided for by the model’s parameters. The children analyzed the possible reasons for inaccuracies and considered corrections for a re-flight. But even Elon Musk’s Starship took off and landed without an incident only on the fifth time of trying. 
Cognitive linguistics. We think in concepts, they are building blocks of our mind. By studying concepts, we can learn something new about a nation’s unique culture and history. Young researchers conducted an associative experiment with the question: “What three words do you associate with the concept ‘Kenyl’ (‘Freedom’)”? The children involved diverse groups of people and found that in the age group of 10-20 years, freedom refers to “absence of restrictions”, “permission”, “money”, and “free time”. At the age of 21-30, people associate freedom with “independence”, “self-reliance”, and “ease”. The 61-70 age group answered “life”, “fairness”, “self-expression”, and “choice”. Then these and other groups of age categories were studied using the material of Yakut literature and musical compositions – in a way, writers were respondents. The children noted social and life factors (for instance, the collapse of the Soviet Union) that could result in different perceptions among generations. 
Arctic Development. Ecological waste processing in the North. Recently, the environmental agenda has increasingly gained the centre of attention. As young researchers accurately point out, recycling is economy plus ecology. Using one thousand kilograms of newspapers as a secondary raw material saves one ton of trees. In this project, the children made pots from recycled paper for planting flowers. To do this, the young researchers shredded paper waste to break it down into small bits, let it settle in the water, and then filled with starch. And finally, they rolled out the cups and allowed them to dry. The students also recycled the soda caps into a cool toy – a homemade spinner. Why spend money when you can recycle waste paper, plastic and at the same time help nature? 
Arctic Development. Environmental issues of oil spills in the Arctic. Russia is an exporting country with a highly developed oil industry. In this project, the children were engaged in such a global and urgent issue as the oil spill in the Arctic, which is known for its specific fauna and flora. The students studied methods of clean-up, the causes of the spill (for example, poor visibility in fog), and studied large cases of the spill. The young researchers acted as an environmental team and cleaned up the oil spill in a laboratory experiment. 
Personalized and predictive medicine. Each person is unique, as, come to think of it, is his complex organism. The children were developing the “YaDiet” mobile app, which makes a weekly meal plan with a filter function for various diseases. This personalized app for northerners has recipes for Yakut dietary dishes, a health advice guide, a points reward system, a consultation with a nutritionist, it can also make a weekly meal plan and water balance or call an ambulance. The medicine of the future is here and now.
