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Join geologist Dr John Flett Brown on the classic Orkney walk along the West Shore of Stromness in this new film made by Mark Jenkins. The journey begins with a fossil beach on the shore of ancient Lake Orcadie, the great lake from which today’s Orkney rocks began their story as sediments.

The world’s most powerful, most technologically advanced tidal turbine is currently generating energy in Orkney waters. Several of those who developed it join us on film to tell the story. And how does it to feel to be working on the forefront of technology in an island setting?

We go over to Orphir and a walk across the sands of Waulkmill Bay and up through the RSPB’s Hobbister reserve on a section of the St Magnus Way. It’s a journey from sandflats and saltmarsh to moorland and sea cliffs for ethnobotanical researcher Anna Canning and Orkney wildlife guide Megan Taylor, as they look out for wild plants and discuss their traditional uses for sustenance and health with foragers from Scotland and Poland.

Join Selena S Kuzman and Anthony Harley on their day adventure to the Moray coast, hunting for beach treasures, with images of the sea. Learn how to make a selkie’s ghost net bracelet from washed-ashore pieces of fishing nets, amongst other examples of finding creative uses for reclaimed coastal waste.

We’re off to the shore, to Warebeth and Birsay, for a creative and informative family-friendly session of shore-inspired fun. It’s hosted by artists and foragers Katherine Diaper, Rebecca Marr and Fiona Sanderson, and marine ecologist Dr Andrew Want, and they say that all ages are welcome. They want you to make plant brushes, and paint with shore-sourced pigments. Forage along the coastline and feast on your finds. Get up close to shore creatures. Photograph the beauty of seaweed. And they’re going to round off with foraged food around a beach fire.

Take the ferry from Stromness to Moaness pier, and walk up the brae to the Hoy Kirk for seaweed soup for supper, with a recipe here for you to prepare at home in advance. Then sit back and enjoy some music, with the story of Jimmy o’ the Bu’s Polka, with memories from his grand-daughter Jean Thomson and his tune played by six of his great-great-grandchildren, including the fiddle that he played on. Then we hear the story of settlement in Rackwick from archaeologist Dan Lee.

Why do they sing? How do they learn their songs? Is there a connection to music more generally? Dr Luke Rendell and Dr Ellen Garland of St Andrews University’s Sea Mammal Research Unit describe the latest insights and explore their implications with composers Emily Doolittle and Alex South. This is followed by a performance by the Kapten Trio of Emily Doolittle’s piece Bowheads, based on the songs of the bowhead whale.

When Bishop George Graham started to build Skaill House 400 years ago, Orkney was settling down after the time of the Stewart Earls. But Europe was caught up in the Thirty Years War. It would affect the lives of Kepler and Galileo – and also many young Orcadians who would join the Swedish army to fight in Germany. There is music by David Griffith and a song by Owen Griffith, and Howie Firth tells the story of a conflict that brought men from Papay and Hoy alongside soldiers like Prince Rupert of the Rhine. There’s a welcome to Skaill House from Major Malcolm Macrae. To add to the experience, you could prepare your own afternoon tea, in a Skaill House style.

Direct from the Moon, there’s now a chance, with Mr Boom to sing and dance!

Modern science was born amidst the Thirty Years War, a catastrophic conflict that flared up 400 years ago when an invasion of Bohemia ended the King and Queen’s rule after just one winter. The Winter Queen was Elizabeth Stewart, granddaughter of Mary Queen of Scots, and the war affected the lives of many people – among them Kepler, Galileo and the poet John Donne. Howie Firth tells the story, interwoven with the online premiere of a setting of Three Donne Lyrics by the composer Edward McGuire, sung by the Choir of Paisley Abbey with bass flautist Ewan Robertson.