water Backpack

The Rotary organization supports Far Out (Ihan Pihalla), a joint project of the Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE) and EU EDUWATER school programme that aims to promote sustainable water usage.

The Water Backpack developed by SYKE during above-mentioned project has been updated with the support of Rotary. It is meant to help children in primary education study and learn about their local waters.

The backpack contains tools and guidance to make exploring your local waters easy and enjoyable.

What can we say about the state of the water based on how transparent it is? Is there blue-green algae in the water, is it safe to swim? What's the oxygen level of it?

The backpack tries to make children interested in the state of their local environments and especially in the state of their local waters.

The Baltic Sea is constantly threatened by human actions, and raising a generation of environmentally concious pupils in primary schools is a way to battle for a cleaner Baltic Sea.

The backpack includes tools to study the following:

  • Temperature
  • Transparency (Secchi depth)
  • Blue-green algae levels
  • Haziness (World Water Monitoring Challenge jar, sticker and a haziness scale)
  • Oxygen levels (Test tube, DO-tablet, color scale)
  • Phosporous and nitrogen levels
The backpack as part of teaching:

The backpack is meant to be a part of comprehensive learning in primary schools, especially as part of phenomenon based learning. Students can create stories about their local waters, starting from studying the preconceptions students have of those waters, continuing on to studying the waters personally, taking photos, and finally making a comprehensive document of all things learned.

In 2023 we have added new modules to study the Flora and Fauna nearby the Water. There are 3 new Modules available.

Other users

Although the backpack was developed for school usage, it is also a good tool for adults to explore your local waters, for example on the beach of your summer cottage!

How do I get one?

The Finnish Environment insitute has developed the backpack, and it is worth 150€. If you are interested in the backpack, you can order one from our webshop. The guides in the backpack are available in Finnish and in Swedish. A water kit refill package costs around 45€.

How can my local Rotary club help?

The club can donate or find sponsors for the backpack, and bring it to be a part of local primary education or even to other organizations such as Scouts. More material about using the backpack can be found in the home page of Rotary district 1410 and 1420 or the home pages of clubs. Search with "Rotary" and "Vesireppu".

Don't hestitate to contact our contact persons:

District 1410: Matti Hakoila matti.hakoila@diversey.com

District 1420: Kaisu Annala kaisu.annala@gmail.com