September 10,2020
The Hitachi High-Tech’s Kasado Division provided support for the Kirito Riverside Family Workshop held on Saturday August 1 on a flood plain in Kudamatsu, Yamaguchi Prefecture.
This workshop is held by the city of Kudamatsu for elementary and junior high school students and their parents or guardians. The participants observe the aquatic life of the Kirito River and check the purity of its waters. Measures were in place for the activity this time to prevent the spread of Covid-19 infections, such as a limit on the number of family groups allowed to participate.
On the day of the workshop, we joined the 18 participants in measuring the purity of the river with a water quality test kit and carrying out observations to check the living things inhabiting the Kirito River. Due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, we were unable to observe the aquatic life through our electron microscope as we had originally planned, so we distributed images taken with the electron microscope of water plants that we had harvested from the river prior to the workshop. The children were fascinated by these handouts.
The quality of the Kirito River water that we measured with the kit was judged to be “Fairly clean,” a result which was consistent with the water quality evaluation index reading based on the aquatic life gathered in our samples.
Going forward, we will continue our involvement in this kind of community-based action. We hope to help boost the environmental awareness of the participants and other people involved in such activities and make them more interested in biodiversity conservation.
Explaining how to harvest samples of aquatic life
Water quality was assessed to be "Fairly clean"
Eagerly collecting samples despite the hot weather
Electron microscope images of a water plant (dried) that had been harvested from the Kirito River
