Water and watermills, past and present

The Project

We have been working on this he project for two years and it has been divided in three stages.

·         1^st stage – Analysis of the drinkable water and survey on the use we make of water supplies

The aims of the stage are to show that it is difficult to get pure water and why; to show the variety of sources of water for drinking and that its purity depends on local conditions; to encourage critical awareness of water quality and to raise students’ awareness of the perspectives of people from other countries.

The students have collected data using questionnaires, read and interpreted them from tables, estimated quantities and  measured PH and then they have compared their results with their partners’ ones. The final results are being published in a leaflet that will be distributed to the community in order to raise everybody’s awareness on the hydrological situation and, eventually, the problems connected with it. During this stage the students have collaborated with the local “Water agencies”.

• 2^nd stage – Old watermills: a witness of our past traditions

The students have visited the water mills existing in the area and they will collect historical material: they have taken pictures, they have studied their structure, the machineries, the tools and their functioning. They have collected traditional stories about watermills and the people who worked there. They have had the possibility to use their imagination and create short stories about them. Finally they have found and recorded witnesses interviewing some elderly.

At the end of this stage they will produce a brochure on the mill including the history, the characteristics, the traditions, the stories, the pictures as well as a video with the recorded witnesses. A guided tour will be organised during which the brochure will be distributed and the video presented inside the watermill together with historical pictures.

• 3^rd  stage – Modern watermills, a new technological exploitation of  the water

In the final part of the project the students will study the possibility to make a modern and technological use of watermills for the production of clean energy. At the end of the project all the products of each school will be assembled in a unique cd and video and a sort of magazine will be prepared illustrating the European watermills taken into consideration. Everything is being published on the website of each school.

Students have had an active role in the planning of the project, i.e. the choice of the objectives, the collection and elaboration of the material, the organisation of the guided tour and the photographic exhibition as well as the preparation of the products.

The schools are disseminating the results organising a photographic exhibition and guided tours open to the public aiming at sensibilising everybody on the importance of respecting the water resources and at making them rediscover old traditions linked to watermills.

The objectives

As far as the participating students and teachers the main general objectives of the project will be the following:

·         to establish intercultural friendship between the participating schools;

·         to involve students in friendship groups which would exchange information regularly;

·         to make them live experiences of contact in a European context;

·         to make them co-operate in a multiracial and multicultural context enlarging their personal development;

·         to make them use the new multimedial technologies such as digital camera, video-camera, hypertext programs and the internet  for communication;

·         to allow participating teachers an insight into different educational system, and to exchange ideas and practices;

·         to make them develop the European dimension through  co-operation;

The main specific objectives of the project are:

·         to make not only students but also all the members of the schools and of the communities aware of the importance of water as a natural resource that has to be respected;

·         to make students know the surrounding hydrological environment through direct observation of canals, rivers, etc. as well as the analysis of the water;

·         to make them collect material, take notes, record and elaborate information concerning the use and misuse of water;

·         to make them explore the area in which they live developing appreciation and curiosity and learning to respect it;

·         to make them consider water mills as alternative sources of clean, renewable and unobtrusive  energy and environmentally friendly;

·         to make them discover the “spirit of the watermills”, listening and collecting, stories, traditions and witnesses linked to them;

·         to improve students’ awareness of management skills and to develop their leadership as well as the ability to be part of a team;

·         to make students compare  the history, the traditions of the other countries involved in the project.