Installing permaculture plant boxes and learning about living things

The Akuo Foundation supported Le Paysan Urbain by financing material for the two projects: firstly, the organization of workshops on invertebrates in towns and cities with the Gambetta elementary school, co-constructed with the school’s teachers. A variety of approaches were used to involve the schoolchildren in a fun way: games, manual activities, observation, drawing, etc. Each pupil was able to directly benefit from the threefold aspect of this project, with the acquisition of knowledge (life and earth sciences, botany), know-how (DIY, gardening, painting) and soft skills (working as a group, a bond with the living world). At the end of the project, three planters were created on the Paysan Urbain farm: a human area with a small pond and a watering place for insects, a dry area with an aromatic rocky spiral and a layered planter for observing a decomposition area.  

The second project concerned the construction of two permaculture planters with the nearby Riblette elementary school. Each pupil needed to use what they had learned in school to undertake the project: for example, they used mathematical concepts to design the planters (measuring the planks of wood required and calculating the volume). The pupils also made a substrate using local sources of materials, reaffirming their knowledge of the fauna and flora.