200 students from seven schools in the Algarve are participating in theand citizen science “Discovering the Aquifer”, which aims to support participatory management of groundwater.
The schools are part of the Montenegro, Almancil, Pinheiro and Rosa Groups (Faro) and Dr. Alberto Iria (Olhão).
The program is currently reaching 200 students and 18 teachers.
Under the coordination of Luís Nunes, professor at the Faculty of Science and Technology of the University of Algarve and researcher at the Center for Research and Innovation in Civil Engineering for Sustainability (CERIS), the objective of the “Discovering the Aquifer” program is for students to schools involved collect, analyze and monitor groundwater.
Vânia Serrão Sousa, a researcher at CENSE – Center for Research in Environment and Sustainability at Universidade Nova de Lisboa, who has carried out several actions in the schools involved, explains how this partnership takes place.
«Students who have boreholes or wells in their homes or those of family members, who wish to collaborate with the project, collect groundwater samples and take them to schools, where, together with colleagues and teachers, they analyze parameters such as pH, nitrate concentration and conductivity, through analysis kits prepared and distributed by the eGROUNDWATER project team», he says.
According to the researcher, “students also have the possibility to determine the depth of the water through the use of a probe developed and built by the project team”.
In relation to the students involved, all of them participate in training actions carried out both at UAlg and in schools. These actions teach how to collect and analyze water samples, as well as the subsequent processing of data. The results obtained by the students will later be included in the eGROUNDWATER project.
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