Geological field trip for the Tonneville school

On Tuesday, March 3rd, a rather special outing was offered to the Year 5 class of François Badier, a teacher at the Tonneville school. As part of the La Hague Geopark designation project, links have been established between this school and a school in another Geopark, the Massif des Bauges, a territory designated by UNESCO since 2011. The principle of this exchange between the two Geoparks is for the children to compare the heritage around them with that of their friends who, like them, are fortunate enough to live in an exceptional territory.

Four themes will be explored during the school year: Heritage and know-how, legends, biodiversity and geology.

It was this latter theme that was highlighted last Tuesday. Accompanied by the guides from the La Hague Geopark and by Yohann Poprawski, a geologist and science communicator, the children were able to discover the Goury site from a new perspective. Yohann Poprawski's explanations allowed them to observe the traces of climate change and sea-level variations in the landscape. Between the port of Goury and the hamlet of La Roche, they were able to identify former sea levels as well as deposits of head and loess dating from the Quaternary period. They also learned that the granites found at this site belong to the category of igneous rocks. This is a notable difference from the familiar landscapes of their peers in the Bauges Massif, which are primarily composed of sedimentary rocks.

After a well-deserved picnic lunch in the sunny courtyard of Le Tourp, the students gathered indoors for a fossil-themed activity. They learned to identify fossils using a key and to read a geological map. The afternoon concluded with a fun quiz game led by the Le Tourp team.

The final phase of this project to establish correspondence between French Geoparks will be dedicated to biodiversity.

At the end of the school year, the children will be invited to create drawings representing their local area. A postcard will be made from these drawings, thus concluding a year rich in discoveries and exchanges.