The Lake Grand-Lieu Centre: Creation of an educational toolkit

In collaboration with the managers of the national nature reserve (SNPN), we have developed an educational kit entitled ‘Manage your nature reserve’, to work with secondary schools in the region that are far from the Lake Grand-Lieu and cannot visit the centre. The kit will be test in 2025. It is aimed at secondary school pupils aged between 12 and 14. Borrowing kit is free and at the request of teachers. The kit can be used to work in Biology, and could inspire some pupils to take up careers related to environmental management. The principle is simple: use the example of the Lake Grand-Lieu to understand the issues surrounding wetlands.

Six themes are covered in this kit:

- The tasks of nature reserve managers over an annual cycle

- The wetlands and Ramsar sites of the région

- The dispersal and migration of animal species

- An introduction to ornithology

- Plankton populations and water quality monitoring

- An experimental protocol for monitoring reed beds

For each topic, there is a teaching sequence of several sessions with games, documents, materials and videos. These sessions take place in the classroom, but one of the aims of this tool is to encourage teachers to go out in the field and meet environmentalists, naturalists or nature reserve managers of local wetlands. These meetings during field trips can take different forms: questionnaires/interviews, or participation in an event or action.