Free course

Scales in space and time

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Scale – dealing with the miniscule to the massive, over milliseconds to millennia – is central to all the sciences. In this free course, Scales in space and time, you’ll go to the absolute limits of what can be measured – all through a study of an oak tree! By studying it you will be introduced to concepts in physics, chemistry, biology and life-sciences, and Earth and environmental sciences. Across these multiple disciplines you will meet time scales that include ages, durations and rates, and size scales including distances in three dimensions, which underpin areas and volumes.

Course learning outcomes

After studying this course, you should be able to:

demonstrate an understanding of the range of size and time scales encountered in science
collect information from multiple sources
use maths skills to convert between units and scales
describe how processes on one scale can impact processes at another scale.

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First Published: 12/02/2018

Updated: 07/04/2020

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Gratiela Hallett 29 July 2026 10:12AM

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This course didn't really align with me. It made me do lots and lots of multiplications and it got tedious. Despite trying to get through, it didn't get any better. Way too long a course and I don't really know what was the point of it. Maybe to see the bigger picture of our universe? To make us respect nature? I do, really, I do. To learn biology? It should have focused on standard form more, maybe. Shame, because there was a lot of work put into this course, I can see that.

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Leinah Rashed Qasem 18 October 2022 9:21PM
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I’ve done from this course just right now, at this moment but the course progress is sticked at 96%

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Scales in space and time

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