#137: BBC Radio programmes: In our Time: 'Plankton' and 1000 more...

In our Time is a long running radio programme which is presented by Melvyn Bragg. 

It has actually passed 1000 episodes, which is remarkable, many of which can be listened to on the BBC Sounds archive.

The programmes can also be downloaded.

Each episode is about 50 minutes long.

This programme explores the importance of plankton, and begins with the amazing fact that "whenever you breathe in, half the oxygen in your lungs comes from plankton".

I wonder what significance the natural history of the oceans will have in the final specification.

We really need them to stick around then...

Description: 

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the tiny drifting organisms in the oceans that sustain the food chain for all the lifeforms in the water and so for the billions of people who, in turn, depend on the seas for their diet. 

In Earth's development, the plant-like ones among them, the phytoplankton, produced so much oxygen through photosynthesis that around half the oxygen we breathe today originated there. And each day as the sun rises, the animal ones, the zooplankton, sink to the depths of the seas to avoid predators in such density that they appear on ship sonars like a new seabed, only to rise again at night in the largest migration of life on this planet.

Melvyn Bragg's guests are:

Carol Robinson, Professor of Marine Sciences at the University of East Anglia

Abigail McQuatters-Gollop, Associate Professor of Marine Conservation at the University of Plymouth

and Christopher Lowe, Lecturer in Marine Biology at Swansea University


The programme also provided a reading list - some useful books here to add to our own reading list.

Juli Berwald, Spineless: The Science of Jellyfish and the Art of Growing a Backbone (Riverhead Books, 2018)

Sir Alister Hardy, The Open Sea: The World of Plankton (first published 1959; Collins New Naturalist Library, 2009)

Richard Kirby, Ocean Drifters: A Secret World Beneath the Waves (Studio Cactus Ltd, 2010)

Robert Kunzig, Mapping the Deep: The Extraordinary Story of Ocean Science (Sort Of Books, 2000)

Christian Sardet, Plankton: Wonders of the Drifting World (University of Chicago Press, 2015)

On the main page of the In our Time programme, you can see links to different categories of programmes, and I can see that there would be benefit in 

Helen Scales, The Brilliant Abyss: True Tales of Exploring the Deep Sea, Discovering Hidden Life and Selling the Seabed (Bloomsbury Sigma, 2022)

If this programme doesn't sound like it will be helpful, then there are well over a thousand more to choose from.

Go to the archive to search for other programmes.

We are producing a list of useful programmes from the thousand-plus programmes which have been broadcast. Quite a few of them connect with themes and topics which we are expecting to see in the final. Here's a sample:

#54: Costing the Earth - BBC Radio 4

The BBC's 'Costing the Earth' series has a great many episodes which will doubtless be of use to those teaching the new GCSE Natural History specification. It will perhaps be a useful job for someone - perhaps me - to go through the catalogue of episodes online and produce a list of those that might be of use for the new specification. *makes mental note.

Here's an example description of a recent programme:

Can writing about nature help to protect it? Charlotte Smith discusses this with three authors: Helen Macdonald, Paul Evans, and Kerri Andrews.

David Attenborough explores the wildlife and wild spaces of the United Kingdom in Wild Isles, his latest natural history series. It’s a glorious celebration but it also highlights the depletion of nature on our own doorstep, and - without a doubt - its power lies, not just in the unforgettable images, but in the strength of the script.

So, in today’s episode of Costing the Earth, Charlotte Smith hears from three British nature writers about what inspires them, how they feel the genre is faring, and whether nature writing can play a meaningful role in helping to protect our own native landscape and its flora and fauna.

Joining Charlotte, who served for three years as a judge of the Wainwright Prize for writing on global conservation, are Helen Macdonald (H is for Hawk, Vesper Flights), Paul Evans (Guardian Country Diaries, Field Notes from the Edge) and Dr Kerri Andrews (a forthcoming book about Nan Shepherd who wrote The Living Mountain, and Wanderers: A History of Women Walking).

Check it out.