The fifth annual Kere Habba at Kaikondrahalli lake, was held this past Sunday, February 17th. It was a sunrise to sunset event, the day started at 6 am with bird watching, and ended with a music concert at 6pm. The habba had other events like a 5K run, a film making workshop, a conference on lake rejuvenation and a science activities center for kids, to name a few. There was a designated citizen corner, where Biome Environmental Trust (Biome) along with Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE) set up a stall to educate the public about the Citizen Science and Lakes Dashboard, and generally about water management. Interested citizens stopped by our stall to learn how the dashboard worked, what kind of chemicals the testing kit could analyze and how they could participate in the water quality testing of the lake water. Some wanted to know if the testing kits could be used to check the quality of water supplied by tankers to their apartments and some others wanted to know what they could do for rainwater harvesting in their homes/ apartments.
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Shashank, Shubha, Suma and Sanjana at the ATREE and Biome stall |
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Interested students reading our wetland primer |
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Interested citizens learning more about water management |
Saurabh from Foundation for Environmental Monitoring (FFEM) joined us to demonstrate how the smart phone based water quality testing kits could be used. All information collected from the app is directly uploaded to the lakes dashboard, which can be accessed through this link, blrlakesdashboard.org. Anyone interested in being part of the citizen group that tests the water quality at Kaikondrahalli and Kasavanahalli lake can reach out to waters@biome-solutions.com.
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Saurabh from FFEM demonstrating how to use the testing kits |