Discovering nature activities and biodiversity

This course aims to introduce first-year undergraduate students to the living world through a naturalist approach. This involves studying the animals and plants that make up Mediterranean ecosystems through their taxonomy, ecology, and biology. Students will study different groups of organisms, including vascular plants, birds, amphibians and reptiles, insects, and bats.

The aim of this course will be to introduce the diversity of life through the discovery of different plant, animal, and other organisms. All students will work on all the taxonomic groups proposed in the EU in order to discover a wide range of organisms, key facts (at various levels [ecology, biology, ecosystem services, diseases, etc.]), tools for studying them, and conservation issues. To this end, the naturalist approach will be at the heart of the practical work carried out in the classroom and on the university grounds. This will involve:

- Developing a "naturalistic sense": instilling in students a sense of wonder about living things, as well as the curiosity that leads them to detect and identify elements of interest in the environment.

- Observation and data collection, which will introduce the concept of sampling and the difficulties of studying living organisms in nature. Data collection (and archiving) will be addressed through (among other things) citizen science programs (such as online databases like iNaturalist and Observado).

- Support field discoveries with bibliographic research on organisms in order to link these observations to the biological, ecological, and evolutionary characteristics of organisms.

A field trip to a natural area near Montpellier (for example, the Marais de Lattes Nature Reserve) will conclude the course unit.

- motivation to discover the natural sciences

- no technical prerequisites

Recommended prerequisites:

A keen interest in the study of nature.

 

Assessment will be based entirely on continuous evaluation, under the supervision of the teaching team responsible for the course unit. Two sessions will be offered. Assessment will consist of two parts: a presentation on an organization of your choice from among those proposed in the course unit, and a multiple-choice questionnaire.

The course is open to two tutorial groups, representing a maximum of 80 students. It is compulsory for students who wish to subsequently take the naturalist courses in the second and third years of the bachelor's degree.

Course materials will combine traditional presentations (.pdf) with other resources, including the internet (collaborative data sharing sites).

Hourly volumes:

            CM: 4.5

            TD: 12

            TP: 12

            Land: 6

Responsible*: Guillaume Papuga and Franck Richard

Administrative contact(s):

- guillaume.papuga @ umontpellier.fr

- franck.richard @ umontpellier.fr