Visitors Center of Tramonti di Sopra (PN)

Opening time

Exhibition “Water: nature, heritage, energy”

Opened in 2008, the Visitors Center of Tramonti di Sopra hosts an innovative exhibition named “Water: nature, heritage, energy,” collects the values of this natural resource in the various spheres of life on Earth including the energy exploitation.




The exhibition was originally created for educational purpose, adapting it to schools. But there are also great opportunities for adults who can discover, together with the children, the topics and the games offered by the Visitors Center.

The route takes place on two different areas: in the first room, in addition to the 3-D model that shows the lake system of the Val Tramontina, we find some historical details together with pictures of the time that illustrate how the water was exploited in the past. A wall mechanism shows us how a hydroelectric power plant works, and introduces us to its importance for the production of electricity using the water mass movement. You can manually operate the simplified panel to have a practical demonstration of how a turbine works.
It is nice and educational also the discovery of various curiosities about consumption, use and waste of water, to understand better the distribution of water resources in the world and how it is used in different regions of the globe.

An indicator light will turn on, for example, to show how much water is consumed to brush your teeth with the water running and how much water you would save instead brushing the teeth with the tap closed. An entire wall is dedicated to experiments. Large drawers contain all the material needed to carry out the described experiments, useful to understand some chemical phenomena.
You learn very abstract concepts such as Pascal’s principle, Archimedes’ principle, surface tension, capillary action, solubility.
In the second room you can watch the video “Water Trails – from the mountains to the sea – from source to mouth” in an environment prepared with real river stones. And you can find out how much water we have in our body getting on a special scale and checking how many water bottles we will virtually fill in front of us. Finally a plastic wall shows the water and the river cycle, focusing on specific definitions of this particular mountain environment.

An experiment

TOOTHPICKS ADRIFT

Physical properties: surface tension
Materials: soup plate, water, toothpicks, dishwashing liquid
Method: fill the plate halfway with water.

Place the toothpicks on the surface so that they are very close matched. Wet the tip of a third toothpick using the dishwashing detergent and place it between two toothpicks floating.

Conclusions: the two toothpicks move away quickly.
The detergent breaks,in the point of contact, the forces of attraction of the water molecules that moving away attract the toothpicks.

A curiosity

Which is the human need for water?

The minimum requirement for the human survival corresponds to 2 liters of water in 24 hours. Without food man can live a month. Without water it does not exceed one week. In order to speak of acceptable conditions of life it is required no less than 50 liters of water per day for every human being.