All Saints College unleashed the Inspiring Seas project team on their pupils to trial some creative ideas concerning all things marine, designed to liven up the Key Stage 3 National Curriculum in Biology, Physics and Design and Technology.Our first round of lessons worked with two groups of talented Year 7s, who joined us as we embarked on a virtual tour of the oceans from coral reefs to the deep sea; exploring the life that lives there and how it is subsequently adapted to live in such extreme environments. This was supplemented by a ‘touch tank’ session where the rocky shore was brought into the classroom for pupils to gain a further practical feel for marine organism adaptations that linked directly to the National Curriculum. The year 7 experience was rounded off by a field trip to the rocky shore; enabling lessons learned in the classroom to be consolidated and placed within the context of the actual environment of study.

A healthy mix of work and play - Touch tanks in the classroom.	Applying their knowledge creatively - All Saints College year 7 pupils make rocky shore collages based on their field trip.

Hayley Swanson, one of the year 7 teachers at All Saints College said: “the classes delivered by the InspiringSeas project team were fantastic. They provide a fun and novel way of delivering the curriculum and overall they made science fun. We all look forward to the InspiringSeas website launch and using the engaging curriculum materials developed” Lessons learned from these activities have been applied to produce a novel array of classroom-based teaching resources on the topic of marine adaptations and the environment available for download from our resources section now.

Our second round of lessons honed in on that little subject of ecology. Ecology is a notoriously difficult subject to engage pupils with in the school environment. As such, a year 8 class trekked down to the coastline with the InspiringSeas project team to engage in some first-hand research. Not only did pupils gain essential experience in the use of ecological sampling equipment (such as quadrats, transects and data loggers), but also carried out some excellent research on very real ecological issues. Alan Carter, whose class visited the coast with us, said the day was: “a fun packed, rocky shore adventure with an educational twist”. Ashfeen and Beth, both year 8 students of All Saints College said “I think it was an excellent experience and I enjoyed it very much… I didn’t really know what ecology was before but now I understand it and actually really like it”. Student and teacher feedback from these ecology classes have been applied to produce a suite of resources addressing marine ecology in the classroom that are available for download from our resources section now.

Our third and final round of lessons turned away from all things biological and into a physics mindset. A group of year 7 pupils were taught about a whole range of issues concerning ship-design, an industry once prominent in the North East of England, to increase their knowledge of physics in a very practical way. Pupils then applied their knowledge by designing and making their very own ships, which were tested for efficiency by loading them up with cargo and looking at the effect of water resistance on their designs.

Pupils further applied their newly found practical ship building knowledge to the sustainability of shipping; appreciating that the more efficiently designed a ship is, the less fuel is required to drive ships forward against water resistance; both lowering the cost of shipping and the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere. Year 7 pupils at All Saints College put their model ships to the test in our towing tank; a miniature exact replica of how ships are tested for efficiency in the real world. By carrying out a simple equation the most efficient design was identified and the team won a prize. In comment to the ship-shape class, Hayley Swanson said: “this is an extremely novel and cross-curricular way to engage pupils with physics. It enlivens the theoretical concepts of forces, stability, moments and speed not just in a practical sense, but also to a real life application. The class was excellent and the pupils were really motivated by the competition element involved”. The Ship-Shape: Exploring the physics of ship design  classroom based resource materials are now available for download from this website as a virtual experiment and accompanying teachers notes.