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Health, Sports & Psychology
Exploring sport coaching and psychology
This free course, Exploring sport coaching and psychology, investigates how scientific and management ideas contribute to success while also taking you on a journey through unique sporting case studies and insights that will change how you view and study sport. You will consider how the mind, the body, the environment and training techniques all contribute to optimum fitness.
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History & The Arts
Sam Selvon, The Lonely Londoners
This free course concentrates on Sam Selvon's twentieth-century novel, The Lonely Londoners. It considers the depiction of migration in the text as well as Selvon's treatment of memory as a vital part of the migrant's experience.
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Science, Maths & Technology
Could we control our climate?
Climate crisis is one of the grand challenges we face as a society, but it can be hard to approach as a subject. Not only can the science at times seem dauntingly complex, but the solutions are also far from clear. This leaves many people feeling confused, guilty, anxious, angry, or else completely switched off from the subject. This course tells the story of climate science in a new way, to find a fresh perspective for thinking about the future. It looks at the problem through the lens of climate engineering - the idea of deliberately trying to modify the climate, to counteract the changes we’re observing and predict what will happen in the future. The subject contains everything from hope – new technologies that could prevent the worst impacts of climate change – to enormous controversies over their risks and the way they could be used. More than that, climate engineering serves as a useful tool to move beyond the usual, often frustrating conversations around what to do about the climate crisis. By examining exactly what we want for our planet's climate, and what we would be willing to sacrifice to get there, we might find more clarity in our search for solutions.
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Languages
Exploring languages and cultures
Explore the multiple relationships between languages and cultures. In this free course you will learn about the benefits and challenges of meeting people from different cultures and the ways in which language and human communities shape each other. You will look at the role of intercultural competence at the workplace, reflect on the use of English as lingua franca in international contexts, and get a flavour of the skills involved in language-related professions such as translation and interpreting.
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Education & Development
FREE courses and content for school study
Back to school? Perhaps you want to gain some extra knowledge during the evenings or weekends. Check out our FREE courses, interactives and videos to help you continue your studies at home.
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Science, Maths & Technology
Perplex: Classic puzzles, past and present
Test your puzzle-solving ability with incredibly immersive and interactive puzzles from The Open University and UKMT
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Languages
The History of English in Ten Minutes
Where did the phrase ‘a wolf in sheep’s clothing’ come from? And when did scientists finally get round to naming sexual body parts? Voiced by Clive Anderson, this entertaining romp through 'The History of English' squeezes 1600 years of history into 10 one-minute bites, uncovering the sources of English words and phrases from Shakespeare and the King James Bible to America and the Internet. Bursting with fascinating facts, the series looks at how English grew from a small tongue into a major global language before reflecting on the future of English in the 21st century.
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Education & Development
Jumpstart University
Aimed to help students starting university this year to prepare for and settle into their studies, the Jumpstart University hub has been developed by The Open University in collaboration with the Russell Group.
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