[LUM#6] Sharing the university

[LUM Magazine] - Published on October 17, 2017 in Science-Society

For eight years, the university has been reaching out to disadvantaged neighborhoods in Montpellier. Sixty students work with children from twelve schools, both in the classroom and outside of school. The program includes meetings and exchanges.

May 2017, Clamouse cave, in the Montpellier hinterland. With wide eyes, schoolchildren from Le Petit Bard and their teachers visit the underground scenery of rocks and crystals that are hundreds of thousands of years old. In the evening, in their so-called priority neighborhood, they will return home imbued with this striking spectacle.

In the middle of the group, there is something unique and enriching: students from the Faculty of Science are accompanying the children. To promote the University and spread scientific culture in the neighborhoods, they are participating in the UniverlaCité project, launched by the University of Montpellier to bring together two worlds that don't often intersect.

Stalactite and stalagmite

Faced with limestone formations, Mehdi, a third-year student, engages the children: "What do we call the one that goes down? And the one that goes up?" The answers come thick and fast, full of enthusiasm: "The one that hangs down is a stalactite, and the one that grows up is a stalagmite!" The students' classroom presentations before the trip have paid off. A flurry of questions follows: "Why is this stalactite so big? Has it been here for a thousand years?""Given its size, hundreds of thousands of years," said one student. Faces lit up in the crystal corridor, but also in front of the "eccentric" formations, zigzagging concretions that seem to defy the laws of gravity.

Once back in daylight, the group sets off to discover the aquatic and terrestrial fauna along the banks of the Hérault River. It's a breath of fresh air for the students and children, who are intent on observing frogs, shrimp, grasshoppers, beetles, and more. With butterfly nets in hand, a mother accompanying the class becomes a naturalist, delightedly searching for insects in the bushes. Even the teachers expand their zoological knowledge alongside the students. The biologists, meanwhile, draw on their memories of practical work when asked to identify dragonfly larvae and other viperine snakes.

Each class is welcomed to the university.

Today, UniverlaCité involves sixty science students in twelve schools in the Mosson and Petit Bard neighborhoods of Montpellier. Over the course of the year, they meet with around 700 children in class and on field trips. At the end of the year, each class is welcomed to the science faculty. To accomplish their mission, the students are supervised by Thierry Noëll, the project's initiator and official UniverlaCité project manager at the University of Montpellier since 2009, assisted by his colleague Sylvie Lanau. "We supervise the students, but they do not receive any specific training: the project is built on spontaneity and human interaction."

"Attending university confers a certain responsibility towards society. Students are reflective and want to share. When they go into neighborhoods, they represent the university. The project brings ambition, openness, and connection to children, but also to students," explains Thierry Noëll, who believes in the calming virtues of having students in neighborhoods. Starting next year, UniverlaCité will expand, reaching six to eight additional schools.

Keywords: Scientific culture, Students, LUM#6, LUM Magazine