London, 18th September 2008:
NYK holds Enterprise Interaction Day for London schools
New marine-themed website for schools is launched with London event hosted by NYK.
NYK held an activity day for local schools at the Royal Geographical Society in London to mark the launch of the Inspiring Seas website offering free marine-themed teaching resources for key stage 3 (11-13 year old) students. 130 young people from various schools in the surrounding area came to the event for a variety of marine-based activities.
This Inspiring Seas project has been a collaboration between NYK and a team from the School of Marine Science & Technology at Newcastle University which hopes to improve the number of young people approaching science based subjects and embarking on marine related careers.
The event gave an insight into what these new modules can offer in the way of interactive and fun teaching resources. Various interactive stalls were set up, including marine life under the microscope, ship design using a towing tank, understanding food webs in the sea and live species classification. The students were able to gain an insight into life at sea and marine related careers with a series of brief presentations from NYK staff and the Sea Cadets. The day ended with a debate asking, 'Is Shipping a sustainable form of transport for the 21st century'? The students argued both sides of this and surrounding issues, such as ballast water management and alien species, carbon dioxide pollution and the shipping technology to address this and the importance of shipping in society today. Expert panelists from NYK and Newcastle University were called upon by the students throughout the debate.
Schools from the North East and London area will be including the Inspiring Seas modules into their syllabus for the year ahead and it is hoped these free teaching resources will be of benefit to more schools as the year progresses.
ENDS
About NYK:
Nippon Yusen Kabushiki Kaisha is one of the world's leading transportation companies. The NYK Group operates approximately 777 major ocean vessels, as of the end of March 2008, as well as fleets of planes, trains, and trucks. The company's shipping fleet includes around 155 containerships, 286 bulk carriers, 55 wood-chip carriers, 113 car carriers, 21 reefer carriers, 79 tankers, 30 LNG carriers, and three cruise ships. NYK's revenue in fiscal 2007 was about $26 billion, and as a group, NYK employs about 51,000 people worldwide. The company has offices in 240 locations in 27 countries, warehouses on nearly every continent, and harbor operations in Asia, North America, and Europe. NYK is based in Tokyo, and has regional headquarters in London, New York, Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Sydney, and Sao Paulo.
