Clean water - clean water catchment basin
During October 8-12, 2012 "Country Water Partnership" NGO carried out five-day training courses within the framework of “Clean water - clean water catchment basins" project in the primary school No. 155 after L. Mirijanyan.
Thirty 7-9th grade students participated in the training course.
The goal of the course was to introduce to the students the present global problems in water resources, particularly with regard to issues of global climate change, and to identify the importance of water resources, not only in everyday life but also in the process of sustainable development of the Republic to inform about water pollution sources and therewith to form a new water use behavior among them.
On the first day of the course the ideas of water circulation, water catchment basins,what is clean water and how it is polluted were introduced to the students. The topics “what does water do for us?”, “where it comes from”, “what it can be, if it is polluted”. “Why it is important to have clean water” “for what purposes do we use clean water”, and other issues were discussed at the class.
A test was done for the students to demonstrate the available fresh water amount on the Earth.
The students were given a task to think about and write at home who are the main water polluters and what can be done to reduce the pollution. On the second day, the students presented their homework tasks. Here is one of them, which was presented by a 9th grade student Susanna Avakian.
“I think that the main reason for water resources pollution is human negligence and indifference towards the nature. Industrial and garbage and wastes are discharged into rivers, wastewater from the houses constructed on river banks is also mostly discharged into the rivers.
In Hrazdan gorge there are many restaurants and hotels, wastewater of which is also discharged into the river. Along with this, after having a good day on the river
bank, people leave discharge their garbage into the river again and leave. A bright example of this is Lake Sevan, which receives thousands of tourists, is one of the most favorite places of local residents, but at the end of the day shores become like landfill, and the best way to hide this is again to discharge the waste into the lake. We can see the same picture on Azat river banks in Garni canyon, in Tavush region - on Aghstev river banks , especially in town Ijevan where the market waste and rotten vegetables are discharged into the river.
I think that the only way to avoid this is installation of waste bins everywhere, and most importantly, everybody should develop an appropriate culture of everyday life and should not think that the nature is his/her property. The nature still resists the human beings, but otherwise a human being cannot resist the nature.
Finally, water is life ......”.
Then we provided information on the main indicators of water quality, represented simple water quality testing instruments provided by the U.S. Clean Water Foundation. The students were divided into 3 groups, determined the quality of the water brought from Hrazdan River and from the lake in “Haghtanak” Park. The 3rd sample was the mixed waters from the first two basins.
The students determined the water quality and registered the otained data in the registration booklet.