Facts, background and context about water and microplastics presented in an understandable way

The dig­i­tal-real edu­ca­tion­al space for water with­out microplas­tics has now been launched under the name WASo­MI. It is open to every­one, free to use and with­out adver­tis­ing. It pro­vides facts, back­ground infor­ma­tion and con­text on the top­ics of poly­mers, plas­tics, plas­tic and microplas­tics. The over­rid­ing ques­tion is how our many use­ful every­day helpers made of plas­tics became a glob­al envi­ron­men­tal prob­lem — microplas­tics. And about how we can pre­vent it in the future.

Education as a lever for sustainable action

“WASo­MI” is the abbre­vi­a­tion for WASs­er with­out MIcroplas­tics. Waso­mi means schol­ar in the African lan­guage Kiswahili. When we found this out, it was clear that there could only be this name for our edu­ca­tion­al work for water with­out microplastics.”

- Katrin Schuhen, Exec­u­tive Director

“With our edu­ca­tion­al work, we want to close knowl­edge gaps about microplas­tics so that we as a soci­ety can take more effec­tive action against the pol­lu­tion of our water,” Schuhen con­tin­ues. And when it comes to microplas­tics, that’s not so easy. It requires insights into the pro­duc­tion of poly­mers and plas­tic prod­ucts as well as the dis­pos­al routes of plas­tic waste. The chal­lenge that Water 3.0 has now tak­en on is to illu­mi­nate the top­ics indi­vid­u­al­ly, estab­lish con­nec­tions and ini­ti­ate sus­tain­able action.

Imparting knowledge: networked and visualized

The edu­ca­tion­al space is based on a net­worked and cross-the­mat­ic edu­ca­tion­al con­cept. Wass­er 3.0 is respon­si­ble for the con­cep­tu­al and con­tent-relat­ed design. comag­ine was respon­si­ble for the 3D visu­al­iza­tion and programming.

One can move freely in the vir­tu­al edu­ca­tion­al space. One’s own inter­ests guide the way through the offered con­tent. Graph­ics, ani­ma­tions, videos and texts con­vey knowl­edge about microplas­tics. The chem­i­cal, phys­i­cal and tech­no­log­i­cal aspects are pre­sent­ed in a sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly sound man­ner. Polit­i­cal, social and eco­nom­ic dimen­sions are also incorporated.

“The foun­da­tion for our edu­ca­tion­al work has been laid with the live launch of our dig­i­tal-real edu­ca­tion­al space. We are very proud of that. But it is only the begin­ning. We are work­ing flat out on fundrais­ing for its real­iza­tion,” says Katrin Schuhen, describ­ing her goal. The edu­ca­tion­al space was made pos­si­ble by a grant from the Ger­man Post­code Lot­tery, oth­er small­er and larg­er dona­tions, and the ded­i­cat­ed efforts of the Wass­er 3.0 team and coop­er­a­tion partners.

Addi­tion­al con­tent and action options are now grad­u­al­ly being inte­grat­ed. The Lab will be equipped with exper­i­ments. This is also dig­i­tal­ly-real and estab­lish­es the ref­er­ence to cur­rent research and devel­op­ment work for water with­out microplas­tics. The exper­i­ments are based, among oth­er things, on the Water 3.0 inno­va­tions for the detec­tion and removal of microplas­tics from water and its sub­se­quent recy­cling. Learn­ing units for use in sec­ondary schools are being devel­oped with Team. These take up indi­vid­ual con­tents of the edu­ca­tion room and lab in a didac­tic way.

The edu­ca­tion­al space is cur­rent­ly avail­able in Ger­man, but trans­la­tion into oth­er lan­guages is planned. For fur­ther expan­sion, we are cur­rent­ly look­ing for coop­er­a­tion part­ners, dona­tions and sponsorship.