Today, the first item on the itinerary was a visit to DakAkker, the rooftop farm. DakAkker is a 1000 m2 rooftop farm on top of the Schieblock in Rotterdam. On the farm are vegetables, flowers, fruit, bees, and chickens. There are several beehives that pollinate the plants on the rooftop as well as the surrounding area. It is also a test site for smart water storage and management. Our tour guide also showed us around the city and to the apartment complex he lives in. There, he explained how tight-knit and welcoming the communities can be in the Netherlands. He said that they all work together to create more sustainable habits in their neighborhoods. We ended the tour at a coffee shop and a rock-climbing gym at the top of a building before transferring to the Watersnoodmuseum.
The Watersnoodmuseum, or the Flood Museum, is the Dutch acknowledgment and remembrance of the North Sea Flood of 1953. Our tour guide walked us through four caissons linked by underground passages, each telling a different part of the flood. The first caisson was about the flood itself with personal documents, photographs, a film, and radio reports from the first days of the flood. The second caisson was about the human emotions and personal experience, including many physical artifacts that were saved in the flood. Our tour guide informed us that to this day they still receive items found by people that either experienced the flood themselves or family members going through houses. The third caisson is based of reconstruction and development from 1953 to the present. It had a large focus of the Delta Works that we visited the day prior and how it has positively impacted the surrounding areas. The last caisson was on the future with the countries plans to adapt wo rising sea levels, climate change, and sustainable living. The museum serves as a historical archive and an educational center on water safety and flood preparedness.