Water projects for the Year of Geosciences 2024-2025 in DREUX

Every scholar year, France's national education system joins forces with the National Center of Scientific Research (CNRS) for a themed year in the sciences. 2024-2025 is the Year of Geosciences, and aims to highlight the crucial role of the Earth sciences in our society. The purpose is twofold: to raise public awareness of the importance of the geosciences in the classes (teachers and students), and to inspire the next generation of scientists, professionals and enlightened citizens.

A wide range of activities are offered to teachers and students in all regions: competitions, online conferences, meetings with researchers, teacher training, resources, etc. In the Orléans-Tours academy, our proximity to the Geological and Mining Research Bureau (BRGM) has led to water-related activities in my classes at the Lycée E. Branly in Dreux.

As a first step, we invited a hydrogeologist from BRGM, Dr Géraldine PICOT-COLBEAUX to talk about groundwater in the 10^th classes (15-16 years-old). She presented models to show the interactions between surface water, groundwater and the oceans. Students carried out hands-on experiments to understand how groundwater flows, how aquifer are recharged and how groundwater are impacted by our activities. They then turned their attention to their immediate environment, the town of Dreux, and worked on a water-related issue in their region (“Where does my tap water come from?”, “Why were there water restrictions in summer 2023?”)

With the “European” 11^th classes (16-17 years-old), where lessons are given in English, we signed up for the “Adopt a Float” project run by the Oceanology Laboratory of Villefranche-sur-Mer. This multi-disciplinary educational program offers students the chance to explore the world's oceans and the importance of studying them to better understand and protect them. By adopting a “profiling float” type underwater robot, students can track the evolution of the ocean's physical, chemical and biological parameters over the course of a school year.

Students from the Lycée Branly have adopted the “Surfin' Dolfin”, which drifts between Australia and New Zealand. With the help of Jack Williams, a PhD student specializing in plankton at the National Oceanography Centre (UK), the students are currently studying the physics and chemical parameters (temperature, pH, pressure, nutrients…) that control the vertical location of chlorophyll plankton over the seasons.

These two projects will be presented as posters in the academy Pos'Terre competition, which aims to decorate the University of Orléans campus with scientific productions from local primary and secondary school students.