Yesterday I was at West Earlham Junior School as the writer in a SAW Trust Science, Art and Writing day school.

I’ve been involved with SAW pretty much since it was set up by scientist and poet Anne Osbourn and am a huge fan of its cross-curricular approach.

As a team, a scientist, writer and artist take over classroom activities for a day. The scientist(s) presents current research science and the children perform related, and fun experiments. Then the writer inspires them to pen poems using their imagination and engaging with the world we’ve just been exploring. After lunch, the artist gets them making colourful and exciting artworks linked to the scientific topic.

It’s a lot of fun – for the children, teacher, and the SAW team. I always learn something, and come away buzzing and tired. Yesterday I learnt we have ten times as many bacteria inside us as we do our own cells!

This week’s topic was how antibiotics can affect good and bad bacteria in the gut. We used inspirational microscopic colour images to let the children see what goes on inside them. And let their imaginations run riot. We dubbed the day ‘Microbe-cosmic explorers’.

To see examples of sorts of wonderful work the children produce, more about how the projects work, and get involved, visit the SAW Trust website.