Résumé : In this first lecture I will introduce a class of stochastic microscopic models very useful as toy models in non equilibrium statistical mechanics. These are multi-component stochastic particle systems like the exclusion process, the zero range process and the KMP model. I will discuss their scaling limits and the corresponding large deviations principles. Problems of interest are the computation of the current flowing across a system and the understanding of the structure of the stationary non equilibrium states. I will discuss these problems in specific examples and from two different perspectives. The stochastic microscopic and combinatorial point of view and the macroscopic variational approach where the microscopic details of the models are encoded just by the transport coefficients.