Work-based educational materials for water management (Vesiope)

We develop work-oriented materials and tasks for teaching water management

Duration of the project

1.1.2025 – 30.6.2027

Source of funding

Maa- ja Vesitekniikan tuki ry

Total funding

40 000 €

The Vesiope project will develop, in collaboration with working life, various materials, such as videos and exercises, for teaching water management. The materials will be used by water sector teachers nationwide and the project will be implemented in collaboration with SAMK, VAMK and Savonia.

There is no national teaching material for higher education in the water management sector, but in practice each teacher has to compile the material needed for the courses themselves. This requires a lot of time, and not one teacher necessarily has strong expertise in all areas of the water management sector. At the same time, as risk management and security measures at water management utilities have become stricter, visits to utilities are restricted in many places. However, employers in the water management sector have expressed the need that teaching at polytechnics should be work-oriented and offer, in addition to generic work-life skills, also have know-how for performing different calculations related to dimensioning and operation of utilities.

This project develops various working life-oriented teaching materials for the joint use of teachers in the water supply sector:

• calculation exercises with solutions (e.g. tank sizing, mass balances, chemical dosing, oxidation)
• teaching and demo videos made in cooperation with working life representatives, e.g. interviews with a water supply design consultant and various operation demonstrations from water supply plants
• question bank for both automatically checked exams and exam questions
• laboratory work instructions for water supply needs

The materials are designed so that they are suitable for use in as many different types of course implementations as possible. The project is implemented in cooperation with several universities of applied sciences (TurkuAMK, SAMK, SAVONIA, VAMK) in order to include as broad a range of expertise as possible in the development of teaching materials and to also promote national networking and cooperation among water supply teachers. Each university of applied sciences has applied separately for support from the Association for Soil and Water Engineering Support, but the content of all of them has been jointly considered and unified.

The materials to be developed will be tested at all participating universities during the project to ensure their quality and functionality. At the end of the project, the materials will be distributed directly to all university teachers who express a desire to use them.