I’ve always been captivated by the creative ways people find to make information more inviting and engaging.
These small experiments offer a flavour of what the latest AI models make possible, using marine life around Plymouth Sound and publicly available education data as starting points.
Have a play. Change the view, follow a ribbon or choose a species.
Meet eleven species found around Plymouth Sound, from rocky-shore residents to visitors in open water.
1 of 11
Corkwing wrasse
Symphodus melops
A small, deep-bodied wrasse with a dark spot near the tail; breeding males turn vivid blue, green and orange. In summer the males build nests of seaweed in rocky crevices and guard the eggs. It lives on the rocky reefs and kelp of the Sound.
Seagrass meadows provide shelter for young fish. The Ocean Conservation Trust grows seedlings on biodegradable cotton-and-hessian mats, known as planting pillows, at the National Marine Aquarium. Divers then lower the established plants into the Sound and pin the mats to the seabed.
In July 2023, the Trust reported planting 100 pillows at Jennycliff Bay, each holding around 40 plants. Explore one pillow, the whole planting and the individual plants within it.
Ocean Conservation Trust, 31 July 2023. Approx. 4,000 plants is calculated from 100 pillows × around 40 plants. These are planting figures, not a measure of survival.Source ↗
The map isn’t showing right now. All six places are listed here, with their details.
The aquarium beside Sutton Harbour, which describes itself as the UK’s largest, is run by the Ocean Conservation Trust. Its cultivation lab is where the Trust raises seagrass for planting in the Sound.
National Marine Aquarium ↗Pins are approximate. Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors.
A closer look at apprenticeships, in Plymouth and across England.
England · 2024/25
353,500apprenticeship starts
In 2024/25, most higher-level apprenticeships were started by people aged 25 and over (71.9% of Higher starts).
Wider ribbons represent more starts.
This shows how starts are distributed, rather than people moving through successive stages.
Department for Education. Counts rounded to the nearest 10. Data table ↗
England · 2019/20 to 2024/25
Across 2019/20 to 2024/25, higher-level apprenticeships grew from about a quarter to two-fifths of all starts (25.6% to 39.8%).
Compare the number of apprenticeships begun at each level, or their share of the total. Choose a year to update the charts.
Department for Education, final full academic years. Source ↗
England · 2024/25
Each dot represents about 1% of that year’s apprenticeship starts.
Grouped by the learner’s age when the apprenticeship began.
The moving dots regroup proportions; they do not track individual learners.
Department for Education. Source ↗
Apprenticeship achievements per 100,000 residents · 2024/25
In 2024/25, Plymouth’s rate was 38.8% above England’s.
This compares achievements with population size; it isn’t a completion percentage.
Plymouth City Council, published February 2026. Source ↗
What excites me is the scope this opens up for information we already hold or can access. We can describe what we want to explore and work with tools that help build a way into it: writing code to organise the data and perform calculations we can inspect, alongside the words, imagery and interactions that bring it to life.
That makes room for more personal kinds of software: a dashboard shaped around a particular question, or an interactive explanation for a particular audience. These are small examples, but they give a flavour of what it means to bring our own imagination to the way people encounter and explore information.
I built this independently, using AI to help develop the code and create the illustrations. It is not commissioned or endorsed by the organisations featured.
Figures are dated snapshots from the linked public sources; the page has not had an independent statistical or scientific review. Species illustrations are AI-generated and not to scale.
