MILAN – Emerging from a basic concept, the WET – Water Education for Teachers - initiative is an international project promoted in Italy by Sanpellegrino, with the objective of providing education on the responsible management of water resources. “Respect for water is learned at school” and now that the desks are empty in the training institutes, it is the Universal Exhibition in Milan, a centre of excellence for a 360-degree encounter on the theme of sustainability, which is hosting the WET workshops, thanks to San Pellegrino, Partners of Expo Milano 2015 and the Italian Pavilion.
The initiative
From 3rd to 10th August, a month which EXPO is dedicating to water for children aged 6-12 and their parents, the San Pellegrino Group is organising educational games laboratories aimed at getting people to understand the importance of proper hydration for the body’s wellbeing, the water cycle, and its role in the balance of our planet. Each workshop lasts for around 30 minutes and is repeated six times a day at the “Vivaio Scuola” [nursery school], on the third floor of the Italian Pavilion.
Thanks to a video-tutorial, you can find out in a simple, fun way, how water is important, vital and indispensable for the lives of human beings, plants and animals. The play leaders then involve the children in a game with dice, where they have to pretend to be the counters, or water molecules, retracing points along their continuous journey, from the rivers to the ocean, from the clouds to the Earth, from animals to man... Corresponding to each stage, the participants collect a bead which can then form part of a coloured bracelet as a reminder of all the places this precious resource travels through. Last, but not least, there is the large chart showing how water is a renewable resource, but one which must be protected. Children are invited to choose, in relation to various situations from daily life, the best ways to save water.
For the benefit of the youngest members of society
As we know, in children, the sense of thirst is less developed than it is in adults. This is why it is essential to control the quantity of water drunk, as well as the frequency. Through interactive games and installations, very young participants and their families, who are their first role models, have the opportunity to discover the percentage of water present in our organs and how we can consistently maintain the equilibrium of our water balance. Every day, we take in water by drinking and eating, but at the same time, we lose it through perspiration, respiration, evaporation, urine and faeces. What is learned through these games is that in order to stay well and healthy, the quantity of water we consume should be equivalent to the quantity lost.
“R-GENERATION” scheduled for October
The WET workshops scheduled for the first week of August were preceded by the “Proper hydration” laboratories organised by the San Pellegrino Group in June, with a high level of participation from schools from all over Italy on a visit to the Universal Exhibition. In fact, around 700 children had the opportunity to learn how water is important for the health of our bodies, right up to the point of recognising the symptoms of inadequate hydration. Moreover, from the 1st to the 8th of October, in order to fully and properly seize the opportunities offered by an educational event like EXPO, San Pellegrino has scheduled a new cycle of workshops: “R-GENERATION”, where very young children are made aware of the need to conserve natural resources, for selective waste collection and for recycling, finding out about the lifecycle of PET plastic and its characteristics.
by editorial staff
