Guide for biblio-explorers: an adventure to discover biodiversity
After more than 3 years' work on the LitterNature publishing project, the scientific culture department publishes its Guide pour biblio-explorateurs. This book is the latest addition to the service's range of scientific mediation activities, which aim to explore the biodiversity hidden in children's literature in an original way, with young readers and families.
Inspired by the LitterNature project's traveling exhibitions on natural sciences for the curious non-specialist, this book takes us on a journey to meet species of plants, insects and birds, as well as extinct species such as dinosaurs. Throughout the book, characters passionate about biodiversity explain the principles of evolution, species classification and the survival strategies of certain species, with amusing examples such as: "Why do some flowers smell like corpses? All in an accessible, easy-to-understand style. This book is a continuation of what the University of Montpellier's scientific culture service has been offering since 2019, by reaching out to young audiences at literary festivals, as well as working with 35 media libraries.
Enriching imaginations
More than just a book, LitterNature's website is a veritable ecosystem of scientific mediation. The site invites young readers to take a census of the living species found in children's literature. All they have to do is register a photo of the animal concerned and answer the questionnaire. Nearly 1,300 contributions have been received from over 440 budding biblio-naturalists.
In addition to offering educational activities, the site also serves as a database for several research projects linking children's literature, biodiversity and behavior. These studies aim to understand the sense of belonging to nature, or the enrichment of imaginaries linked to social and ecological transitions.
Train as many people as possible
LitterNature is also a series of exhibits now available for hire nationwide, but accessible free of charge to young audiences, enabling them to learn about biodiversity through activities and sharing. They have been designed to be easily adaptable and modular, so that they can be hosted in scientific cultural venues and adapted to their constraints (surface area, modularity). Since the start of the 2023 school year, LitterNature has been opening up to new partners, offering biodiversity training to media librarians, groups of elementary school teachers and groups of people involved in scientific culture. The aim of these training courses is to make the exhibits, and more broadly the LitterNature ecosystem, ever more autonomous and accessible. The aim is to share knowledge as widely as possible, an ambition that the scientific culture department makes no secret of.
National expansion
The current challenge for the project is to expand nationally. Training courses and travelling exhibitions were initially organized at regional level, but are now being rolled out on a wider scale throughout France. With this opening up, new challenges arise, linked to the autonomy of these exhibitions and the tools made available by the scientific culture department of the University of Montpellier. The idea behind this desire to move towards greater autonomy and simplicity of use for participants is to create a massification of contributions and greater sharing of knowledge. A greater number of contributions also means higher-quality scientific results for ongoing research linked to the LitterNature project.