My OpenLearn Profile
- Personalise your OpenLearn profile
- Save your favourite content
- Get recognition for your learning
Nature & Environment
Explore our shared home and get to know the species you're sharing it with.
Most popular in Nature & Environment
free course icon
Level
Nature & Environment
Aquatic mammals
Mammals come in a bewildering variety of shapes and sizes and yet all of the 4700 or so species have some characteristics in common, which justifies the inclusion of diverse types within a single group. Although mammals evolved on land, a number of species have become adapted to spending part or all of their lives in water and it is these mammals that you are going to concentrate on in this course. You will meet some aquatic mammals, find out how we can study them, consider their evolutionary history and read about human impacts on one iconic group.
free course icon
Level
Nature & Environment
Introducing the environment: Ecology and ecosystems
What is ecology and why is it important to our understanding of the world around us? This free course, Introducing the environment: Ecology and ecosystems, looks at how we can study ecosystems to explore the effect that humans are having on the environment.
article icon
Nature & Environment
Do animals have sex for fun?
How was it for Fido? Do animals approach sex in more than a - well, animalistic - way?
Latest in Nature & Environment
free course icon
Level
Nature & Environment
Microbes – friend or foe?
Microbes often get a bad name. Whilst some of them do cause disease, others play vital roles in recycling nutrients in the soil to enable plants to grow, and in breaking down human waste. Without microbes, we would have no beer, no yoghurt, no coffee. That's quite impressive for something too small to see. This free course, Microbes friend or foe? sheds some light on them.
article icon
Nature & Environment
iSpot: Your place to share nature
Global biodiversity is in decline and the spotlight is on all of us to act to help monitor and protect the variety of ecosystems to reduce deterioration. This loss affects ecosystems, species and habitats on which all life on earth depends. What can and should we be doing to help sustain nature?
video icon
Nature & Environment
What’s it like being a geologist?
Watch an interview with geologist Charlie King, as she discusses technology advances, the highlight of her degree course and how more women are getting into geology.
©1999-2020. All rights reserved. The Open University is incorporated by Royal Charter (RC 000391), an exempt charity in England & Wales and a charity registered in Scotland (SC 038302). The Open University is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority in relation to its secondary activity of credit broking.