Created 1995, the “Main à la Pâte” (Hands-on) programme now plays a significant role in the French educational landscape. This initiative aims to promote and develop the teaching of science, and to make science enjoyable by encouraging thought, individual experimentation, inquiry and observation.
Nearly a decade after the publication of the highly successful La Main à la Pâte (the manifesto of the programme published in 1996), some of the main promoters of the programme review it and evaluate it. They describe its successes, the new tools that have been established, and perspectives for the future.
They explain how to give children the desire to investigate, a sense of what is real, an awareness of the universal, and a familiarity with the objects and phenomena of nature.
This unprecedented panorama of ten years of intense and innovative pedagogical experiences points the way to the future of science education for young children.

Georges Charpak is a Nobel Prize laureate in Physics. His publications include La Vie à fil tendu, Devenez sorciers, devenez savants and Devenez savants, devenez prophètes.
Pierre Léna is a professor of astrophysics at the University of Paris-VII and an associate research fellow at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientique (CNRS). He is a member of the French Academy of Sciences and the author of Graines de science.
Yves Quéré, a physicist and member of the French Academy of Sciences, is a former professor and director of the Ecole Polytechnique. He is the author of La Science institutrice.