NOV20

Classroom lesson · Piran salt pans · 🇸🇮 Slovenia

Piran salt pans

Sea-water ponds where salt has been harvested by hand for 700 years

Shallow rectangular salt ponds at the Piran salt pans with sea behind

Photo · Wikimedia Commons

What is it?

Just outside the seaside town of Piran are shallow ponds where workers have been making sea salt by hand for over 700 years. The sun and wind dry the seawater until only a layer of white salt is left.

Tell me more

Salt-makers ('solinari') wade through the ponds with wooden rakes, gathering the salt into small pyramids.

Piran's most famous salt is 'fleur de sel' - delicate flakes that form on the surface and are harvested before sunrise.

Each pond is lined with a special layer of grown-on algae called 'petola' - a Slovenian invention that keeps the salt clean.

In the classroom

Walk your class through this in 15 minutes.

Talk together

Discussion prompts

  1. 01Where does the salt in your kitchen actually come from?
  2. 02Why might salt have been so valuable in the past that it was used as money?
  3. 03What other ingredient could you 'grow' from just water and sunshine?
Try this

Classroom activity

Try a salt-water experiment: dissolve some salt in warm water, leave it on a windowsill, and check each day to see crystals reappear.

More about Slovenia

Other things that make Slovenia special

Want your class to meet Slovenia?

Pick Sloveniawhen you register and we’ll show you the time-zone feasibility.

Register your classroom