The opening day of the ecological house for children and families at the Brno Zoo. Photo credit: Brno Zoo
Brno, 20 Aug (BD) – One of the three ecological houses at the Brno Zoo shows visitors what life could be like in the future and also serves as a fun educational tool. The roof of the wooden house is equipped with a green stone carpet and a small photovoltaic system working with a storage battery that supplies energy to a noise metre inside. Visitors can thus learn, among other things, whether the strength of their voice is similar to that of a llama, a tiger or an Arctic wolf.
“Educational signs have been installed in the houses for some of the city’s projects, for the Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plan (SECAP) and for the environmental education programme in schools. Solar panels on the roof power the devices inside. The houses playfully inform visitors about the city’s goals for the expansion of Green Roofs and teach children in a fun way. They also show rainwater retention and the development of renewable energy sources, allowing children and parents to test the functionality of these measures in practice,” added Petr Hladík, First Deputy Mayor.
“The Brno Zoo is obviously a place where people mainly go to see animals, but since we have also been a school facility since 2016, education is a very important part of our activities. So where else would the eco-house be located if not here in Mniší hora. From the first reactions of the children, it was obvious that this is the right way to educate them,’ said Martin Hovorka, director of the Brno Zoo.
A similar house has been at the Riviera since last year and another since this July at the Hády Lamacentre. The foundations were built by the municipal company SAKO Brno, while the Brno University of Technology, which also built the houses, took care of the design. The Brno city forestry company provided the timber for the construction in the form of a sponsorship donation worth CZK 103,000. The owner of the ecological houses is SAKO Brno, which donated them to the city. The cost of construction was CZK 238,000.
