Hello everyone. I’m Jake Stevens and I’m your rep here at the hotel. I’m sure you’ll all have a great time here. So let me tell you a bit about what’s on offer. I’ll start by telling you about some of the excursions that are available for guests.

One thing you have to do while you’re here is go dolphin watching. On our boat trips, we pretty well guarantee you’ll see dolphins – if you don’t you can repeat the trip free of charge. We organise daily trips for just 35 euros. Unfortunately there aren’t any places left for this afternoon’s trip, but come and see me to book for later in the week.

If you’re energetic, I’d recommend our forest walk. It’s a guided walk of about seven kilometres. There’ll be a stop half way, and you’ll be provided with a drink and sandwiches. There’s some fairly steep climbs up the hills, so you need to be reasonably fit for this one, with good shoes, and bring a waterproof in case it rains. It’s just 25 euros all inclusive, and it’s every Wednesday.

Then on Thursdays we organise a cycle trip, which will give you all the fun of biking without the effort. We’ll take you and your bike up to the top of Mount Larna, and leave you to bike back – it’s a 700-metre drop in just 20 kilometres so this isn’t really for inexperienced cyclists as you’ll be going pretty fast. And if it’s a clear day, you’ll have fantastic views.

On our local craft tour you can find out about the traditional activities in the island. And the best thing about this trip is that it’s completely free. You’ll be taken to a factory where jewellery is made, and also a ceramics centre. If you want, you can buy some of the products but that’s entirely up to you. The trip starts after lunch on Thursday, and you’ll return by 6 pm.

If you’re interested in astronomy you may already know that the island’s one of the best places in the world to observe the night sky. We can offer trips to the observatory on Friday for those who are interested. They cost 90 euros per person and you’ll be shown the huge telescopes and have a talk from an expert, who’ll explain all about how they work. Afterwards we’ll head down to Sunset Beach, where you can have a dip in the ocean if you want before we head off back to the hotel.

Finally, there’s horse riding. This is organised by the Equestrian Centre over near Playa Cortino and it’s a great experience if you’re a keen horseback rider, or even if you’ve never been on a horse before. They take you down to the beach, and you can canter along the sand and through the waves. It costs 35 euros and it’s available every day.

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So there’s plenty to do in the daytime, but what about night life?

Well, the number one attraction’s called ‘Musical Favourites’. Guests enjoy a three-course meal and unlimited free drinks, and watch a fantastic show, starting with musicals set in Paris and then crossing the Atlantic to Las Vegas and finally Copacabana. At the end the cast members come down from the stage, still in their stunning costumes, and you’ll have a chance to chat with them. It’s hugely popular, so let me know now if you’re interested because it’s no good leaving it until the last minute. It’s on Friday night. Tickets are just 50 euros each, but for an extra 10 euros you can have a table right by the stage.

If you’d like to go back in time, there’s the Castle Feast on Saturday evening. It’s held in a twelfth-century castle, and you eat in the great courtyard, with ladies in long gowns serving your food. You’re given a whole chicken each, which you eat in the medieval way, using your hands instead of cutlery, and you’re entertained by competitions where the horseback riders attempt to knock one another off their horses. Then you can watch the dancers in the ballroom and join in as well if you want. OK, so now if anyone …

STEPHANIE: Hello, Trevor.

TREVOR: Hello, Stephanie. You said you wanted to talk about the course I’m taking on literature for children.

STEPHANIE: That’s right. I’m thinking of doing it next year, but I’d like to find out more about it first.

TREVOR: OK, well, as you probably know, it’s a one-year course. It’s divided into six modules, and you have to take all of them. One of the most interesting ones, for me, at least, was about the purpose of children’s literature.

STEPHANIE: You mean, whether it should just entertain children or should be educational, as well.

TREVOR: Right, and whether the teaching should be factual – giving them information about the world – or ethical, teaching them values. What’s fascinating is that the writer isn’t necessarily conscious of the message they’re conveying. For instance, a story might show a child who has a problem as a result of not doing what an adult has told them to do, implying that children should always obey adults.

STEPHANIE: I see what you mean.

TREVOR: That module made me realise how important stories are – they can have a significant effect on children as they grow up. Actually, it inspired me to have a go at it myself, just for my own interest. I know can’t compete with the really popular stories, like the Harry Potter books – they’re very good, and even young kids like my seven-year-old niece love reading them.

STEPHANIE: Mm. I’m very interested in illustrations in stories. Is that covered in the course?

TREVOR: Yes, there’s a module on pictures, and how they’re sometimes central to the story.

STEPHANIE: That’s good. I remember some frightening ones I saw as a child and I can still see them vividly in my mind, years later! Pictures can be so powerful, just as powerful as words. I’ve always enjoyed drawing, so that’s the field I want to go into when I finish the course. I bet that module will be really helpful.

TREVOR: I’m sure it will. We also studied comics in that module, but I’m not convinced of their value, not compared with books. One of the great things about words is that you use your imagination, but with a comic you don’t have to.

STEPHANIE: But children are so used to visual input – on TV, video games, and so on. There are plenty of kids who wouldn’t even try to read a book, so I think comics can serve a really useful purpose.

TREVOR: You mean, it’s better to read a comic than not to read at all? Yes, I suppose you’re right. I just think its sad when children don’t read books.

STEPHANIE: What about books for girls and books for boys? Does the course go into that?

TREVOR: Yes, there’s a module on it. For years, lots of stories, in English, at least, assumed that boys went out and did adventurous things and girls stayed at home and played with dolls. I was amazed how many books were targeted at just one sex or the other. Of course this reflects society as it is when the books are written.

STEPHANIE: That’s true. So it sounds as though you think it’s a good course.

TREVOR: Definitely.

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TREVOR: Have you been reading lots of children’s stories, to help you decide whether to take the course?

STEPHANIE: Yeah. I’ve gone as far back as the late seventeenth century, though I know there were earlier children’s stories.

TREVOR: So does that mean you’ve read Perrault’s fairy tales? Cinderella, The Sleeping Beauty, and so on.

STEPHANIE: Yes. They must be important, because no stories of that type had been written before, there were the first. Then there’s The Swiss Family Robinson.

TREVOR: I haven’t read that.

STEPHANIE: The English name makes it sound as though Robinson is the family’s surname, but a more accurate translation would be The Swiss Robinsons, because it’s about a Swiss family who are shipwrecked, like Robinson Crusoe in the novel of a century earlier.

TREVOR: Well I never knew that!

STEPHANIE: Have you read Hoffmann’s The Nutcracker and the Mouse King?

TREVOR: Wasn’t that the basis for Tchaikovsky’s ballet The Nutcracker?

STEPHANIE: That’s right. It has some quite bizarre elements.

TREVOR: I hope you’ve read Oscar Wilde’s The Happy Prince. It’s probably my favourite children’s story of all time.

STEPHANIE: Mine too! And it’s so surprising, because Wilde is best known for his plays, and most of them are very witty, but The Happy Prince is really moving. I struggled with Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings – there long books, and I gave up after one.

TREVOR: It’s extremely popular, though.

STEPHANIE: Yeah, but whereas something like The Happy Prince just carried me along with it, The Lord of the Rings took more effort than I was prepared to give it.

TREVOR: I didn’t find that – I love it.

STEPHANIE: Another one I’ve read is War Horse.

TREVOR: Oh yes. It’s about the First Word War, isn’t it? Hardly what you’d expect for a children’s story.

STEPHANIE: Exactly, but it’s been very successful. Have you read any …

In today’s class I’m going to talk about marine archaeology, the branch of archaeology focusing on human interaction with the sea, lakes and rivers. It’s the study of ships, cargoes, shipping facilities, and other physical remains. I’ll give you an example, then go on to show how this type of research is being transformed by the use of the latest technology.

Atlit-Yam was a village on the coast of the eastern Mediterranean, which seems to have been thriving until around 7,000 BC. The residents kept cattle, caught fish and stored grain. They had wells for fresh water, many of their houses were built around a courtyard and were constructed of stone. The village contained an impressive monument: seven half-tonne stones standing in a semicircle around a spring, that might have been used for ceremonial purposes.

Atlit-Yam may have been destroyed swiftly by a tsunami, or climate change may have caused glaciers to melt and sea levels to rise, flooding the village gradually. Whatever the cause, it now lies ten metres below the surface of the Mediterranean, buried under sand at the bottom of the sea. It’s been described as the largest and best preserved prehistoric settlement ever found on the seabed.

For marine archaeologists, Atlit-Yam is a treasure trove. Research on the buildings, tools and the human remains has revealed how the bustling village once functioned, and even what diseases some of its residents suffered from. But of course this is only one small village, one window into a lost world. For a fuller picture, researchers need more sunken settlements, but the hard part is finding them.

Underwater research used to require divers to find shipwrecks or artefacts, but in the second half of the twentieth century, various types of underwater vehicles were developed, some controlled from a ship on the surface, and some of them autonomous, which means they don’t need to be operated by a person.

Autonomous underwater vehicles, or AUVs, are used in the oil industry, for instance, to create maps of the seabed before rigs and pipelines are installed. To navigate they use sensors, such as compasses and sonar. Until relatively recently they were very expensive, and so heavy that they had to be launched from a large vessel with a winch.

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But the latest AUVs are much easier to manoeuvre – they can be launched from the shore or a small ship. And they’re much cheaper, which makes them more accessible to research teams. They’re also very sophisticated. They can communicate with each other and, for example, work out the most efficient way to survey a site, or to find particular objects on the seabed.

Field tests show the approach can work. For example, in a trial in 2015, three AUVs searched for wrecks at Marzamemi, off the coast of Sicily. The site is the final resting place of an ancient Roman ship, which sank in the sixth century AD while ferrying prefabricated marble elements for the construction of an early church. The AUVs mapped the area in detail, finding other ships carrying columns of the same material.

Creating an internet in the sea for AUVs to communicate is no easy matter. Wifi networks on land use electromagnetic waves, but in water these will only travel a few centimetres. Instead, a more complex mix of technologies is required. For short distances, AUVs can share date using light, while acoustic waves are used to communicate over long distances. But more creative solutions are also being developed, where an AUV working on the seabed offloads data to a second AUV, which then surfaces and beams the data home to the research team using a satellite.

There’s also a system that enables AUVs to share information from seabed scans, and other data. So if an AUV surveying the seabed finds an intriguing object, it can share the coordinates of the object – that is, its position – with a nearby AUV that carries superior cameras, and arrange for that AUV to make a closer inspection of the object.

Marine archaeologists are excited about the huge potential of these AUVs for their discipline. One site where they’re going to be deployed is the Gulf of Baratti, off the Italian coast. In 1974, a 2,000-year-old Roman vessel was discovered here, in 18 metres of water. When it sank, it was carrying medical goods, in wooden or tin receptacles. Its cargo gives us insight into the treatments available all those years ago, including tablets that are thought to have been dissolved to form a cleansing liquid for the eyes.

Other Roman ships went down nearby, taking their cargoes with them. Some held huge pots made of terracotta. Some were used for transporting cargoes of olive oil, and others held wine. In many cases it’s only these containers that remain, while the wooden ships have been buried under silt on the seabed.

Another project that’s about to …