On October 16, 2023, in Barcelona a new edition of the seminar Sustainability: without water there is no future took place. In this seminar the participants analysed how a city like Barcelona and its Metropolitan area (with over 3 million of people) manages the supply of the water, in a period of drought of 37 consecutive months.
It was a successful, practical seminar packed with visits, conferences and workshops with the final goal to create a lesson plan applicable in the classroom of the participants. The content of the seminar included:
The history and evolution of the supply of water in this area. From the Roman times of the old Barcino, to our days. We visited the city and the places connected with this process.
The urban use of water. We had a nice walk watching how water can be seen in open spaces like parks or squares (with ornamental fountains) or the old fountains from the XIV century to our days.
We visited the plants that treat the water in the city: The purification plant (the one that takes the water from the river and sends it treated to the houses and factories). The wastewater treatment plant and one of the desalination plants in Catalonia.
We also visited different museums in the city connected with water offering pedagogical proposals that the participants could adapt to their school. Maybe the most special was CosmoCaixa: Amazonian flooded forest where the group could debate about the climate change and how it affects the water of our planet.
We could visit the CSIC (the Higher Centre of Research in Spain) where the participants followed a conference from one of the researchers to familiarise with the studies they do connected with the Mediterranean Sea, and how they collaborate with the educational organizations and the university.
Close to this space we had a practical activity at the beach. The activity “The beach as resource for science class: zero plastic sampling” was focused to give to the participants one practical example on how to work on the pollution of the sea/beach with the students.
Like with all the other courses, we visited the city of Barcelona to get the knowledge of some of the traditions of the city, specially connected with water. We saw, by different photos, how the city has been changing during the last 150 years. From this activity the participants could visualize how to develop a similar activity in their city and to take advantage of the changes of the city and develop the concept of “heritage”.
Along this intense course, the connections between the participants were getting stronger and stronger… Maybe it will be the first step for future shared projects, by eTwinning or maybe Erasmus+ KA2. In any case, all the participants will have our help if they need it. Next February 26th we will have another edition of this seminar, the oldest in LearnToTeach from 2011 maybe with your participation!