It's March, which means that spring has officially sprung, so this month the Education Zone is celebrating all things shiny and new.

The evocative Songs of the Coalfields provides the inspiration for a brand new English lesson on industrial folksongs. With its focus on the tone, mood, tempo, and lyrics of ballads, this piece could also easily form the basis of a provocative music lesson. A Science lesson on two comic public information films from the 1940s offers a novel approach to exploring the spread of diseases, and to celebrate Tim Burton's new film, we have a curious musical starter activity (in Top and Tails) on Alice in Wonderland (1903).

Wonderland also provides the focus of our monthly collection on alternative archive Alice titles, as well as the wonderfully weird material we've added to The Cutting Room - our online editing tool. Get inspired!