Stories from Nowhere Wood

Welcome to Nowhere Wood!

Yes, that really is its name.

Nowhere Wood is in Nailsea, North Somerset, England. It is part of the Trendlewood Park, an award-winning green space. 

Nowhere Wood is full of stories, from all of the creatures that live there to the people and events that have shaped and built the wood over billions of years.

Stories from Nowhere Wood tell a few of these stories.

Find the extraordinary hidden within the everyday and familiar.

Most stories contains a twist, a big idea to make us think more deeply about how life took over this small blue planet in space. Links to the big ideas are found on the right of each page. Other stories will tell  about how people helped Nowhere Wood grow and develop. 

There are detailed notes on the ideas behind the stories, and mapping to Key Stages 2 and 3 of the English National Curriculum. See Notes on the stories if you want to follow this up. 

Really, though, the stories are for anyone who is curious about how the natural world is like it is. Take a journey through and see for yourselves. 

There are three paths you can follow: 

1. The latest posts can be viewed here.
2. The first post, Trampling acorns underfoot is an excellent place to start. Then follow the links at the bottom of the page. 
3. You can view a collection of Summer stories by clicking here. 

Neil Ingram has had many years’ experience as a biology teacher in a variety of secondary schools, Head of Science and an A-level examiner. He has authored assessment materials for middle years biology courses and written extensively for Nuffield curriculum projects. He has recently co-authored a book on Evolution for Oxford University Press, which was published in 2021.

He is interested in curriculum development for middle years biology, and was a member of the Royal Society of Biology education committee, which developed a curriculum framework for 5-19 years biology education. 

He has recently retired from the University of Bristol, where was senior lecturer in science education. He taught on  the biology programme on the PGCE course.  in the  He is interested in the impact of genomics on society, and ran a course on Genetics, Society and Education in the University of Bristol.

How to contact the resource:

Twitter: @NeilIngram1

email: neil@neilingram.co.uk

Andrew Town has been a key figure in the conservation of Nowhere Wood and the wider Trendlewood Park for many years. He is a keen amateur naturalist and photographer. He has compiled a detailed species record for the species living in the wood and the wider park. These can be seen on the Friends of Trendlewood Park website.

Stories from Nowhere are reflections on the changes that take place in a small wood in England during a single year. The stories are springboards for deeper thinking about the “big ideas” of biology.

This a new kind of resource for biology education. It aims to promote literacy and curiosity about the “big ideas” of biology.

Designed for personal reading, it can also be used in online learning or classroom discussions.


The resource has the following features:

a series of short, self-contained, stories, each leading into a “big idea” of biology. Awareness of these ideas develops gradually across different stories.

Each story is 500 words or less, written in accessible English, designed to be read on screens. There are tooltip explanations of key words.

The stories are lavishly illustrated, often with the author’s own photographs.

There are extensive teachers’ notes with links to the KS3 programmes of study for science in England.

The site is under development and, if there is sufficient demand, additional stories can be added at a rate of one or two each week, following Nowhere Wood through the changes that take place within a single year and over the whole history of life on Earth.

Visit the first story now

or visit the Stories from Nowhere homepage.

Follow @neilingram1 on Twitter

or subscribe to the site to receive regular updates and to help to shape its future development.