TWO of a North-East university’s prestigious science projects teamed up to offer the region's students a unique scientific experience during Climate Week.

Pupils are today being given the opportunity to experience climate change science first hand in a working laboratory, thanks to the Durham University's Climate Change Schools Project and the Tipping Points project.

The wide-ranging research project is based at the university’s Institute of Hazard, Risk & Resilience (IHRR).

Pupils from St Anthony's Girls' School, in Sunderland, and All Saints VA Church of England School, in Stockton, are getting a broader understanding of climate change through a hands-on experience, using microscopes to examine fossils and analyse sediment samples.

During the sessions, the pupils are meeting scientists who work on cutting-edge climate change research projects and are taking part in pollen analyses which can explain past climate change and experienced a working research laboratory.

Both schools are members of the Climate Change Schools Project, an award-winning educational programme based at the Science Learning Centre North East.

The project aims to put climate change at the heart of the national curriculum and encourages schools to work with their communities to spread knowledge of and take positive action on climate change messages.

The Tipping Points project, funded by The Leverhulme Trust, provides IHRR with an opportunity to explore tipping points - moments where everything suddenly changes - a term increasingly used to describe the world we live in.

Professor Dave Petley, director of the Institute of Hazard, Risk and Resilience, said: "Climate change is one of the most pressing issues facing society in the 21st Century.

"We welcome this opportunity to engage young people with the latest research that we are undertaking to understand the ways in which the climate has changed in the past and the implications this has for the future".