“ACCELERATING CHANGE”
With the resolution A/RES/47/193, United Nation General Assembly declared 22 March as the World Water Day, dedicated to celebrate fresh water and its sustainable use, defence and protection all over the world.
Each year, a new pay off is assigned to this international day which respects the given priorities to reach the Global Goals. “Accelerating change” is the 2023 pay-off, underling the need to enhance solutions to solve the water and sanitation crisis. The UN-World Water Day page is full of information with respect to individual actions and possibilites to spread the news.
In this article, we like to celebrate the World Water Day by presenting the awareness campaign done by MicrobEco in 12 Italian Schools of different educational levels. As scientists, we collected data about the quality of drinking water and we analysed the tap water from several schools’s faucet. Though the water faucets in the schools and public buildings we visited were neglected and in a certain way discourage people to drink tap water, the chemical, physical and microbiological analyses always resulted in good quality of drinking water.
To involve students, we organised laboratory activities and showed the membrane filtration techniques for microbiological analyses, explaining the importance of bacterial components and of indicators of water quality. Students were enthusiastic with the learning-by-doing activitites and they also massively participateto the data collection trought an on line questionnaire about water use in their family.
Microbial ecologist with a real passion for communicating the importance of microbes in all aspects of our life. I spent more than 13 years as a researcher in several international and national institutions integrating classical microbiological methods with the most advanced techniques in microbial ecology. My research interests are in the field of microbial ecology, microbiology, limnology and environmental policy. That’s why I became an expert environmental consultant. Meanwhile, in 2012, I founded MicrobEco together with some of the best Italian microbial ecologists and we are continuing its mission of sharing know-how among the scientific communities and of making future generation of not experts be passionate about science. Science needs to be recognised of daily use and to be truly integrated in environmental policy.