Rough Science is back - and our team of intrepid scientists are facing some of their biggest - and dampest - challenges. After the dry, arid heat of the desert in Rough Science 4, this time, we're taking them out to sea.

Zanzibar - one of Africa’s most enticing locations - is the setting for the most ambitious set of challenges that Rough Science has ever undertaken.

The latest series of the popular Open University and BBC TWO production will see the scientists take on a range of exacting marine challenges, pitting their scientific wits and ingenuity against the Indian Ocean.

The four resourceful scientists, Mike Bullivant, Jonathan Hare, Kathy Sykes and Ellen McCallie, will have two bases during their stay in Zanzibar:a traditional Zanzibari fishing dhow and a remote beach-side workshop.

All they have to help them tackle their science-based challenges are a few basic bits of kit, whatever the island holds that they can harvest or recycle, and their own resourcefulness and ingenuity.

During the series the Rough Scientists, led by host Kate Humble, will attempt to locate and explore a shipwreck, mount a sea rescue, build a lighthouse on an uninhabited island where there is no electricity and touch on the ecology of the area when they have to come up with an environmentally-friendly way of protecting one of the spectacular corals reefs that lie off the Zanzibari coast.

Kate Humble, an experienced diver, will judge from the depths of the ocean whether the Rough Science team has what it takes to complete the underwater challenges set for them.

By the end of this six-part series there will be nothing that the Rough Scientists haven’t discovered about the natural resources that this fertile island and its reef-filled waters offer.

Content last updated: 24/01/2005