The children actively raised their hands in response to our questions.
Wanting to help students and children get a hands on understanding of the importance of measuring, HORIBARIANs head out to various locations to offer outreach seminars using the theme, “learn by measuring”. HORIBA Advanced Techno participated in the 5th Lake Biwa Marutto Parent-Child Seminar held at Moriyama City Library (Shiga Prefecture) on October 27th as a cooperating company and delivered an outreach class. The seminar, organized by the International Lake Environment Committee Foundation and Kinki Labour Bank, is an event for parents and children to learn and have fun interacting with nature as an opportunity to think about the future of the lake in a glocal* way and take action. A total of 36, including 23 children, participated in the day’s parent-child event. After the HORIBA seminar, all participants picked up trash to raise each other's awareness of environmental conservation.
*The word "glocal" is a combination of "global" and "local," describing the process of thinking globally while acting locally.
In what situations of our daily lives is water used?
What kind of water is clean water?
These were some of the questions thrown at the participants to get them to start thinking about water. You cannot tell how clean water just by how it looks or smells. We explained the importance of water resources and what we need to measure, to know water quality.
We also explained that familiar places like pools, aquariums, and water purification plants are not the only places that HORIBA products are used, but they are also used in factories, farms, and fish farms, and that by measuring water, HORIBA products are contributing to ensure safe and secure water around the world. It was a short seminar but at the end the children thanked us for teaching them about water.
The children actively raised their hands in response to our questions.
After the seminar, all of the participants picked up trash at the Metagawa Riverbed Park near the library. Among the participants were children called Meta Rangers. They belong to the certified NPO Biwako Hojo no Sato and work daily to protect the fireflies and nature along the Meta River. As such, they are knowledgeable about environmental issues and ecosystems, and told us about places in the river where trash tends to accumulate and about microplastics. At first glance, there seemed to no trash in the river, but then we saw that the grass was littered with bits of plastic bags, candy wraps, and other items. We know that plastic poses a danger to the ecosystem if it is absorbed by living organisms. This was an opportunity to think again about what we can do to protect the natural environment.
Working together with other people who are interested in environmental conservation, all participants were able to touch base on the importance of acting on your own accord to protect nature. We hope that the educational content we provided will help everyone become more aware of the importance of water.
It is impossible to grasp the situation at hand and take action without measuring. In water environment conservation too, measuring water helps to understand the situation and provides clues about what actions need to be made going forward.
By educating the children of our future, HORIBA will continue to convey the importance of measuring.
We finished by taking a commemorative photo with all of the members.
