General introduction of our project. Our class participates to the project RIVAdiPO to valorize tourism and environment of the river Po. Particularly our objective is to study in depth the history of the “Grangia*” in Pobietto and a biological analysis of the water taken from the site of Pobietto and directly from the river around this. Studying the history of Pobietto, there are different themes to work on. For this reason we have been divided into different groups, each one of these has to study a topic in depth. These topics are:

Paleonutrition Geology Analysis of the ruins of the human skeletons which will help us study their economy and alimentation Necropolis History of Pobietto

From the objects found in the area of Pobietto we will study the way of living of the tribes which inhabited this area. *Grangia: ancient farm with a large yard and a church.

Thursday 25/01/2007: visit to the Civic museum of Casale Monferrato In the Civic museum of Casale there is a hall dedicated to the ruins found in the Necropolis by Pobietto. This visit was aimed at helping the students who study the economy, alimentation and way of living of the tribe of Pobietto. In this hall it is possible to see the cinerary urns which were made by hand and every family made one. In an urn there are not only the ashes of one person but of two or more people. This means that if the main person in the family died another one

was sacrificed for him/her and they all were creamed together. In the urns there are not only the ashes of the people but also of the wood that was used to burn the bodies. This means that we can detect the

flora in that area. Also some food was burnt with the bodies: observing this we can understand the alimentation of the tribe.

Not many urns contained the ashes of children which were buried all together so we can hypothesize that the funeral was different from an adult’s one. The older tombs were in the centre of the “cemetery” and the younger ones were set in concentric circles around the first ones. There was no particular recognition symbol that distinguished social classes. A tomb was a hole in which the urn was put and covered with a small hill of earth. Around this there was a circle or rectangle of rocks with similar colour and shape. We can determine the age of an urn simply looking at its shape.

If its bottom is low the urn is older. In the museum there are also rings, bracelets, needles, caps for the needle, a weight for a hand loom all of these make us understand how evolved this tribe

was. They also indicate that they had texture ability and technical capacity with bronze. We can know what era they lived in looking at the objects they worked with: the Bronze era (XI – X century b.C.) Only one lance was found which indicates that they were not a warlike population. One of the objects found was a fishing hook which demonstrates that this tribe used to count on the river as a resource of alimentation.

Friday 09/02/2007 realization of our projects The day started in the Multimedia classroom where teacher Gatti (Biology & Earth Science) illustrated the global project sponsored by: Acqua benessere e sicurezza, Parco fluviale del Po e dell’Orba, Università Piemonte orientale di Alessandria, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore di Piacenza, Università

degli studi di Parma e Regione Piemonte. After we were divided into groups and associated to our works, every-one of us started to do research for every topic we consider. The last two hours we moved into the biology lab. where we did an biological analysis of water from the river Po drew in the area of Morano, the irrigation ditch of

Popolo and the well of a classmate of ours.

Monday 12/02/2007 the show must go on Today the show must go on, everybody from the early morning has worked intensely to realize their own project.

Wednesday 14/02/2007 to the theatre Today all the classes of our region that are working on this project are meeting at the Municipale theatre of Casale monferrato to present the work that has been done and will be completed to all the other classes. After the authorities invited explained why they where there and what they where representing our class had to present the project for first. The courageous Joseph Ellard and Francesca Trivero walked up on the stage and presented all of the work done for this project, also the scientific part was illustrated. After our class had finished all of the others presented there work.

Friday 16/02/2007 back in the lab. The results of the microbiology analysis done on the water of the river Po drew in the area of Morano and from the well of a classmate the 09/02/2007 this analysis was only a test to try the culture dishes. The results tell us that the colonies grown from the Po water were so many that we could not count them (uncountable). The same for the water from the irrigation ditch. Instead in the regards of the well water no fecal coliform colonies grew, only moulds, this tells us that the culture dishes do not work properly.

23/02/2007 in the lab. once again After the last count we did the actual experiment where we used different culture dishes, because the ones that we used before did not give the results that we desired: NAME

INGREDIENTS (g/l)

PH

g/l

Brillant green

Bile 2% agar, peptone 10.0, lactose 10.0, brilliant green 0.0133, bile of ox 20.0

7.4 (25°C)

40.0

Violet red bile agar

Pancreatic digest of gelatine 7.0, yeast extract 3.0, lactose 10.0, bile salt mixture 1.5, sodium chloride 5.0, neutral red 0.03, crystal violet 0.002, MUG reagent 0.05, agar 15.0

7.4 (25°C)

41.6

KF Streptokokken

Every 10ml/l add 1% of TTC (trifeniltetracolo chloride)

7.2 (25°C)

71.5

Membrane Pancreatic digest of casein 9.0, peptic digest of casein animal tissue 2.5, yeast extract 6.5, sodium chloride 5.0, lactose 12.5, bile salts n°31.5, aniline blue 0.1

7.4 (25°C)

52.0

TBX chromgen agar

Peptone from casein 20.0, bile salts n°31.5, glucuronic acid 0.075, agar 10.0

7.2 (25°C)

31.6

For more information on tequine used widening ( Appendice 2)

01/03/2007 a meeting with a forest guard The day started with three hours in the multimedia lab. where we continued realizing our projects and then at the four hour of the morning we went in to the AULA MAGNA. Here we listened to a conference held by a forest guard who illustrated us with some presentations on power-point the continuous “artificializaition” of the river Po specifically but also of other rivers of the “Pianura Padana”. He also talked about the consequences that this brings, floods that devastate urbanizations an make victims. But it is not the natures fault, but humans, because we want to make the river pass in certain points with a certain speed so we force it with cement walls. This makes the river deeper and tighter, but the consequences of this is that at the first river inundation all of the city around it will be flooded. Humans who think that they are “cleaning” the river, are actually destroying the flora and fauna of this area ruining the rivers ecosystem. Also this brings consequences that are harmful for man and nature.

Friday 02/03/2007 the final count down The morning starts, as always, in the multimedia lab. where we check the images and for any grammatical errors. We also are completing a bibliography noting the names of books and sites from where we took photos or images.

Friday 09/03/2007 the latest results

From the latest results of the test done on 23/02/2007, we have understood that only a few of our culture dishes are reliable. This is due to the fact that they grew the most decent colonies which were also countable.

Tuesday 20/03/2007 the visit to the Grangia of Pobietto At the second hour of the morning we went to the Grangia of Pobietto picking up our guide on the way.

Once we had arrived the guide started to explain the reason why the Grangia was used. She also explained the irrigation method of rice, given that the area is surrounded by rice fields and the influence this has on the river.

She also pointed out the history of the church found on the grounds and how this influenced daily life of the local people, as well as the history of the Grangia itself explaining how it originally belonged to the Church and was subsequently passed on to others. She talked

about how the canal Cavour was used and is still used to irrigate the rice fields. Then we went on towards the river to draw 4.5 litres of river water to do our final analysis discussing the local flora and fauna.

After that we headed back to school.

Friday 23/03/2007 the official analysis Today we will finally do the official analysis with the Po water drawn on the previous Tuesday.