Playing on water the better to conserve it

Les Péniches du Val de Rhône, a nonprofit created in July 2002, proposes educational cruises on board the barge "La Vorgine et ma Découverte", focusing on the relationship between man and water, in an interdisciplinary setting (science, history, geography, etc.).

The workshops, built around a system of active pedagogy, are aimed at a broad public, from school children to the general public. Through thematic cruises, the nonprofit wants to raise civic awareness about waterways, the riverbanks and the city, through various approaches (scientific, artistic, cultural) designed to empower each of the participants in his relationship with the natural environment and in the experience of life in a group on board the barge.

The challenges of water for a sustainable city

Les Péniches du Val de Rhône is creating a board game around the urban circuit of water and the rivers on the territory of the Lyon urban community and the "challenges of water for a sustainable city": water cycles, uses, leisure activities, risks, patrimonial role of the Rhône and Saône in the Greater Lyon area. It provides a basis for building up an eco-civicmindedness grounded in the local and the global, and fits into a twofold context: the goal-oriented policies of the urban community (major guidelines of the Territorial Coherence Scheme, adoption of Local Agenda 21); and the National Education Administration (redesign of junior-high and high school programs in geography and the development of Education in Sustainable Development both inside and outside school).

A network of educational partners

The game, created with the backing of Institut National de Recherche Pédagogique, is initially produced in 1,000 copies, and could reach about 6,000 persons each year, including 3,000 children (junior-high and high school), directly on the barge but also through various partner and mobilized networks: education in sustainable development, National Education (teachers, educational advisers and inspectors). The project is monitored and evaluated by a university research activity.