Welcome to Eilean Mòr
Eilean Mòr is a virtual island off the coast of Scotland, and its town, Cladach, lives only in our imagination. It is a place where young learners can explore data, their environment, and the challenges our changing future will bring. Here they can investigate real-world problems, look for solutions, and find ways to build a better world.
An island full of data
Eilean Mòr has a constantly developing data set, built around the things a real island community depends on:
- Wind turbines
- Solar power plant
- Hydroelectric dam
- Community school
- Community hospital
- Ferry
- Weather and sea conditions
- Biodiversity monitors
The data is largely synthetic. It is developed from similar sensors located elsewhere in Scotland, or created using AI-generated algorithms, so learners can work with realistic data in a safe, imaginative setting.
Stories that bring data to life
The island will host many story-based scenarios that immerse learners in a data-rich context, helping them explore, analyse and understand real-world problems. Why did the turbines pause? Why is the classroom getting stuffy? What is happening to the seabirds? Learners collect the evidence, find the patterns and draw their own conclusions.
Where the journey begins
The journey towards GIBE begins much earlier than most people think. The opportunity to excite young learners about data, digital skills, numeracy, science, engineering, construction and many interdisciplinary areas begins in primary school.
Eilean Mòr builds on work already begun by the University of Edinburgh, which started in Newbattle High School and Roslin Primary in Midlothian. Through the Data-Driven Innovation initiative, 2,500 indoor environment sensors have been placed in 500 schools across the south-east of Scotland, in the hands of the learners themselves, so they can discover how CO2, temperature, light and humidity affect the places where they learn.
Stories such as Mission IOT, led by Professor Hamish McTavish, already challenge classes to collect data from their own classroom, analyse it and work out how to improve it. Eilean Mòr takes that idea further, from the classroom to a whole community, and shows how systems connect to one another.
The journey has just begun
Eilean Mòr is growing, and the learners will determine where the journey takes us. More scenarios, live data and teaching resources will appear here soon.