Par Gwenaël Merret
Published on
“I am happy to see the children put your hands on the groundas they evolve more and more into virtual worldssmiles Jacques-Étienne Lobry, director of the Saint-Jugon school. His CM2 students as well as those of Laurent Danilo benefited from the intervention of Justine Delatouche, environmental educator of theLande Associationin Monteneuf, as part of the “Vigie nature école” operation, around the populations of earthworms.
Monday 28 November was the second of four scheduled sessions. On 1 m2 square of grass, located in thegreen amphitheater, located right next to the school, the children poured a mixture of water mixed with mustard. Objective: to bring to the surface the earthwormscollect and classify them.
participatory science
” IT IS participatory science , with a protocol developed by the Natural History Museum in Paris,” explains Justine Delatouche. “It’s about collecting data to help scientists about animal species found in nature. Their disappearance is not just a distant phenomenon. The populations earthworms have many decreasesbecause of’soil artificialization sand intensive agricultural practices: ploughing, fertilizers and pesticides. In a natural meadow there are between 150 and 300 worms per m2. In a field of intensive cultivation, they are only 1 in 3! It means its the earth has no more life , then the inputs to grow crops. »
The virtues of earthworms
However, earthworms contribute to the soil richness“They fertilize it with what they eat, rejecting organic matter. Their tunnels aerate the ground. Worms allow it plants to grow better . »
The program “Observatory on the nature of the school”, to the “suitable for children” protocol, does not only concern earthworms: “Birds, snails, plants, lichens, algae” are also the subject of data collection elsewhere.
The first session was dedicated to a general presentation of earthworm varieties: “The epigeal they live on the surface, they are small, brown-orange. The endogenous they live in the first layer of the soil, dig horizontal tunnels and are pink and gray in colour. The red-headed anemones and the black-headed anemonewhich are longer and larger, and dig deeper vertical tunnels. »
On Monday the children were on the alert to collect worms of different categories. The next two sessions were devoted to studying their biology and sending the collected data to the scientists of the fruit.
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