The city’s botanical gardens invite the public to explore their 28-hectare expanse, free of charge, all year long. Visitors can partake in informative guided tours to deepen their understanding of the botanical world, or engage in workshops and activities thoughtfully designed for children.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s herbarium, compiled in the 1770s for the printer-bookseller Charles-Joseph Panckoucke, is presented through preserved pressed specimens, its original catalogue and related botanical publications. The historical collection combines scientific observation and aesthetic arrangement, revealing Enlightenment approaches to collecting, classification and the popularisation of plant study. Detailed notes and annotations illuminate Rousseau’s techniques and the materiality of specimens, inviting reflection on how personal curiosity and scholarly networks shaped early modern natural history.
This interactive memory challenge invites participants to test their memory while exploring practical ways to preserve biodiversity based on Geneva’s municipal strategy. Players match “before-and-after” images that illustrate individual and institutional actions, and each correct pair reveals concise information explaining the measure. The activity examines themes such as habitat restoration, species-friendly practices, urban greening and policy responses, helping participants understand the impact and rationale behind everyday and organisational conservation choices.
This workshop explores the traditional process of assembling a herbarium specimen, inspired by Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s collections. Participants learn scientific techniques for pressing and mounting dried plants on old paper, practice botanical labelling and nomenclature, and select specimens to create a personal herbarium sheet. The session examines preservation methods, identification principles and the historical context of Rousseau’s approach, combining practical skills with scientific insight to produce a lasting botanical object.
In French.
Roger Zürcher, beekeeper and former project director at FH Switzerland, and Dr Kiatoko Nkoba from ICIPE bring field experience in beekeeping and insect ecology across Europe and East Africa.
The round-table examines nature-friendly beekeeping and meliponiculture, exploring how stingless bees pollinate unique plants, support biodiversity, and produce rare therapeutic honey. Discussions investigate agroecological practices in South Kivu, integrating forest conservation with sustainable agriculture and community-based pollination strategies.
In French.
Step into the life of a plant and discover how it senses the world. Explore how roots and stems find water and how leaves turn toward light. Feel textures, smell damp soil, and listen for tiny movements as you perform simple experiments and sensory investigations. Observe color changes, measure growth, and ask questions about how plants react when a leaf is removed. Hands-on activities and botanical explorations spark curiosity and teach how plants perceive their surroundings.
In French. Kids ages 8 and up.
Gardeners Léa Cosandey and Camille Fournier, experienced ethnobotanical gardeners, guide participants through plant identification and traditional uses, drawing on field knowledge of medicinal species from Switzerland and abroad.
This guided tour examines the virtues and risks of common and exotic medicinal plants, exploring digestive, diuretic, healing and soothing properties as well as nerve-system effects. Participants observe equivalents in the greenhouse and learn safe, evidence-based approaches to use and identification.
In French.
Culture, curated weekly.
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