SUMMER CAMP 2025

MINES Paris – PSL organized its first all-female Summer Camp from August 19 to 28, 2025, on its Pierre Laffitte Campus in Sophia Antipolis. In which 30 young women, ages 14 to 17, called “Summer Campeuses”, participated.

The initiative was supported by Petroineos and RTE (a SciDoSol partner), who share thebelief: it is essential to inspire vocations from an early age by offering all young women the same opportunities to explore and succeed.

One of the three workshops offered to the “Summer Campeuses” was a variation of the UNDERSOLAR project, and was supported and organized by SciDoSol. This educational, experimental, and bilingual (French/English) project aimed to provide a hands-on demonstration of solar energy conversion into:

• electrical energy: building a photovoltaic USB charger based on a comprehensive educational resource by Planète Énergie (TotalEnergies Foundation);
• thermal energy: low-tech construction of two solar ovens followed by experimentation.

This project was accompanied by a series of introductory courses on the solar system, the topocentric position of the Sun, the basics of solar radiation and meteorology, as well as the challenges related to solar energy as a resource.

The SciDoSol participation was under the supervision of Ms. Susanne Weyand (PhD student at SciDoSol), Ms. Candice Barnes (PhD student at the Centre O.I.E.), and Prof. Philippe Blanc (Titulaire de la Chaire SciDoSol).