skip to main content

You Are Here: Home / Learning / Science, Technology and Nature / The World Around Us / To the Lighthouse
 
The world around us
 

Episode 4: To the Lighthouse

 
Ellen Cooking
Ellen Cooking

To the lighthouse diaries

The team goes to the lighthouse... but who's afraid of the challenge?

Ellen's diary
Jonathan's diary
Kathy's diary
Mike's diary

Far from shy

Can you really get enough oil from a coconut to power a lighthouse? See the incredible properties of vegetable oils.

Related programme

A summary of the To the Lighthouse challenge, part of the BBC/OU's programme website for Rough Science 5

Zanzibar and its surrounding islands lie at the heart of a busy shipping lane. But what boats sailing these waters can’t see are the treacherous reefs that lie below. Many ships have been wrecked in the past and these days there is a series of lighthouses to warn unsuspecting sailors. But there’s one island without a lighthouse and that’s Bawe, so this week the team’s challenge is to build one.

If building a lighthouse wasn’t a big enough challenge, the uninhabited island of Bawe is an hour’s journey from the mainland and covered by dense tropical forest. There’s no electricity, as Kathy finds out when she goes to recce the island to find a good spot for the team to site their construction.

Ellen and Mike need to make a light that will be visible from far out to sea.

Jonathan and Ellen have the job of making the lighthouse structure and inventing a mechanism to make the light flash and Kathy has the job of making it turn. She decides to rely on rock power…but her ideas don’t quite go to plan.

We’ll find out whether or not they’ve succeeded on the evening of day three when we take a trip past the island after dusk.

Content last updated: 04/02/2005

 

Bookmark with:

  • del.icio.us
  • Digg
  • Facebook
  • Newsvine
  • NowPublic
  • Reddit
  • Stumbleupon
Please wait while loading. You must have JavaScript enabled to view star ratings.
 
 
 

Explore Open2

Penguin

Two members of the Life team go in search of penguins in their natural environment. See what they find on Deception Island.

Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe

Would you say you're a Christian? Share your views, and learn about the views of others, in our new Christianity survey.

Breaking news, 1940s style

Keep up to date with our Twitterfeeds of latest news from Open2 and alerts of OU programmes on the BBC.

 
 

Site info and help