Our Hungarian project partner, Pisztráng Kör, obtained a minibus, so called Microtus Minibus, for the purposes of this project.
The minibus will be used as a mobile laboratory for children – especially for school excursions, which, thanks to the accessories included, will be educated about nature protection issues, habitat restoration, wetland restoration, importance of species in the ecosystems, particularly that of the root vole, the protection of which is a subject matter of the common project – Restoration of habitats for root vole *Microtus oeconomus mehelyi.
The mobile laboratory will include prepared educational programs for three age groups – 3-9 years old, 10-14 years old and 15-18 years old.
The minibus is designed in the shape of root vole and is provided with field equipment – desks, work chairs, solar panels, screen, microscopes, cameras, videocameras. An interactive exhibition is comprised, which will always be installed after parking the minibus.
Our project partner intends to travel with the minibus to the municipalities and cities both in Hungary and in Slovakia as well as to transport the participants interested in excursions to the territories of root vole occurrence, and to explain the life of this rare endemic species in detail context.
The root vole is closely related to wetlands, wet meadows, with sedge (Carex) and reed (Phragmites) vegetation. In Slovakia, its several micro-populations occupy the Podunajská nížina lowland. Few populations of this sub-species can be found in Hungary and Austria. We protect the root vole together with the project partners from these countries.
The excursion participants will collect water plants and organisms from the location with root vole occurrence and will identify them using technical equipment of microbus and identification cards prepared for this purpose.
If you are teachers from schools, children or parents interested in an educational excursion in the minibus, please feel free to contact us at broz@broz.sk. As soon as the pandemic situation gets better, we are ready to continue with the excursions.
