Scientific expedition to the world's
deepest undersea volcanic rift

Key Stage 4

SCIENCE:

'Organisms and health': organisms are interdependent and adapted to their environments; variation within a species can lead to evolutionary changes and similarities between species can be measured and classified.

When we encounter an animal at a depth of more than two miles in the ocean, there is a 50-50 chance that it will be a new species that no-one has seen before. But how can we tell that it is a new species? How would you recognise a new species, and what would you call it? Can you imagine a new deep-sea species - what adaptations might it have to its environment?

'Environment, Earth and Universe': the surface of the Earth has changed since the Earth's origin and is changing at present.

How do the chains of undersea volcanoes at mid-ocean ridges shape our world? How are the plates of the Earth's crust moving relative to each other? What are mid-ocean ridges, and what role do they play in the movement of those plates?

Other curriculum links

Primary curriculum: scientific knowledge and technological understanding

Key Stage 3: 'Science'

GCSE Biology, Chemistry, Physics

A-level Biology, Chemistry, Physics