All our free courses
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Nature & Environment
An introduction to floodplain meadows
This free course, An introduction to floodplain meadows, explores how these traditional landscapes can deliver a range of nature-based solutions that will improve our environment. The course will help you to learn about this unique environment, increasing your ecological knowledge, developing your skills in critical reasoning, and offering you ...
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History & The Arts
What can philosophy tell us about race?
Categorising human beings into races has had, and continues to have, an enormous impact on people’s lives. Many societies have been shaped by racial divisions and racial discrimination. Race continues to affect people’s experiences and personal identities today. This free course, What can philosophy tell us about race?, will introduce you to ...
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Society, Politics & Law
Developing a research question in International Relations
This free course, taken from the MA in International Relations (Part 2), explores why research questions matter and what makes a good research question. Research questions are vital for any academic inquiry, yet writing a good one is not easy. A well-designed question enables you to clearly define and communicate a focused area of research in a ...
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Health, Sports & Psychology
Mental health in society
In this free course, Mental health in society, you will explore and critically reflect on mental health. You will explore the relationship between the lived experiences of individuals, and the society and environment in which they live. Different perspectives, approaches and models of understanding and critiquing mental health will be explored ...
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Health, Sports & Psychology
Doping: a contemporary sports issue case study
In this free course, doping (performance enhancing drugs, or PEDs) is used as an example of how contemporary issues in sport might be studied. Doping is used to illustrate how you can think about the debates involved in an issue and this will help you develop appropriate skills to discuss other contemporary issues in sport.
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Science, Maths & Technology
White dwarfs and neutron stars
Stars live their lives for millions or billions of years but will eventually die. Low mass stars (like the Sun) will end their lives producing so-called planetary nebulae, and leave behind a collapsed core known as a white dwarf. More massive stars will end their lives by exploding and producing a so-called supernova remnant, and leave a neutron...
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Science, Maths & Technology
The formation of exoplanets
Over the last few decades astronomers have discovered thousands of planets orbiting stars other than the Sun – known as exoplanets. Many of these exoplanets are quite unlike anything we see in our Solar System. These include ‘hot Jupiters’ orbiting very close to their parent star and rocky ‘super Earths’ many times larger than our home planet. ...
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Money & Business
Developing business ideas for drone technologies
Are you a drone pilot looking to explore the opportunity of expanding your offering in the agricultural, forestry and rural sectors? Are you a student interested in knowing how drones can impact positively on agricultural sustainability? Maybe you know very little about drones but would like to experiment with them in rural settings. In this ...
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Education & Development
Principles and practices of peace education
Principles and practices of peace education explores how peace might be built in everyday classroom practice. It can be used as individual study or as a basis for CPD with a larger group. It introduces layers of peace education for children and young people, including inner-peace and wellbeing; interpersonal peace through positive relationships ...
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Nature & Environment
Evolutionary tree of mammals
This introduction to the evolution of mammals considers Darwin's observations on mammals and how he noticed that species fell into natural groups. This free course, Evolutionary tree of mammals, looks at evidence from fossils and DNA to examine which mammals are most closely related to whales.
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Health, Sports & Psychology
Caring for adults
Caring for adults is an introductory course for anyone in a caring role, either paid or unpaid. It builds on what you already know to give you a better understanding of your role as a carer. It also supports your own well-being by giving you some ideas and information about looking after yourself and dealing with stress.
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Science, Maths & Technology
Blood and the respiratory system
‘Don’t hold your breath’ is an expression you’ve probably heard many times, but may not have thought too much about. In this free course, Blood and the respiratory system, you’ll study why respiration is so important for life, including how air enters and leaves the lungs, how oxygen is transported in the blood, the many dynamic factors that ...
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Health, Sports & Psychology
Understanding mental capacity
This free course, Understanding mental capacity, covers the principles and criteria underpinning the assessment of mental capacity and decision making in the UK.
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Health, Sports & Psychology
Introducing ageing
Everyone is ageing, whatever their current age, and we live in a world where many people are living much longer than previous generations. This is often seen as a problem. But is it? This free course, Introducing ageing, will help you to think about this issue by introducing you to some key ideas in studying later life.
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Health, Sports & Psychology
Introducing public health
This free course, Introducing public health, presents some key elements of public health and health promotion. It considers the scope and focus of public health and how it is subject to change and located within the wider global context.
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Nature & Environment
Climate change and renewable energy
Human-induced climate change and resulting extreme weather events are an increasing and serious threat to the Earth’s ecosystems. This free course, Climate Change and Renewable Energy, describes the basic science of the greenhouse effect and how it has been modified by human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels. It describes the ...
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Science, Maths & Technology
Unsolved problems in cosmology
The science of cosmology has been very successful in explaining a wide range of observational evidence about the Universe, from the detailed properties of the cosmic microwave background radiation to the distributions of galaxies, and the elemental abundances in astrophysical environments. However, there are several major unknowns in ...
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Health, Sports & Psychology
Introducing the psychology of our relationships with fictional villains
This free course, featuring interviews with famous crime fiction authors, explores psychological theory and research on the relationships we form with fictional characters.