PUPILS at a Glasgow school have been taking the world by storm by conducting a unique social experiment on the social networking site Twitter.

A tweet was sent from the official Sunnyside Primary School account on Tuesday evening stating, "As part of a social media experiment we'd like to find out just how far a tweet can travel. Can you help us out by retweeting?"

More than 4,500 people across the globe have retweeted the message in its first 24 hours, putting the Craigend school on the map.

The tweet has received a huge response from the online community with local celebrities showing their support as well as people across the globe in countries including Japan, Kenya and China.

Pupils have a map of the world in the classroom and will update that with countries that the tweet has reached as part of the experiment.

The project was the idea of class teacher Katie Ewen, who looks after P6/5.

She wanted to show the pupils just how far a tweet can travel, the pros and cons of using social media, and why it is important to say safe online.

She said: "Pupils have been learning about social media and how to stay safe online.

"I came up with this idea to really teach pupils more about this subject and promote the school."

She added: "We are really excited and we cannot believe the response to this already.

"The pupils and staff are delighted by how well it has taken off."

Follow the school @SunnysidePri