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Nature & Environment
Traditional Ecological Knowledges: Learning from the past to inform the future
Many indigenous communities have used their environmental knowledge to manage their environment. This article explores Traditional Ecological Knowledges and how we can live more sustainably.
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Nature & Environment
Studying Mammals
Welcome to OpenLearn’s ‘Studying Mammals’ series. This collection of 10 free courses covers everything from the largest to the smallest of mammals, their eating habits and social interactions.
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Nature & Environment
Is the 2020 New Deal a Green New Deal?
Dr Vicky Johnson leads the economics line of study across a range of geography modules in relation to the environment at The Open University. She looks at whether the New Deal by the government to boost the economy is actually good for the environment.
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Nature & Environment
Embodied Carbon: Three reasons we should care
We all need to be reducing our carbon emissions, both individually and as a society, to help prevent worsening climate change. The science suggests that time is running out. PhD student Freya wise is investigating the impact of embodied carbon for reducing carbon from heritage buildings.
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Nature & Environment
In your garden: Birds and nesting boxes
Vicky Johnson explores why birds need nesting boxes and how you can create one to help the birds in your garden.
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Society, Politics & Law
A bird on the edge: the story of the chough and how it speaks for people
Dr Andy Morris looks at one of the less familiar members of the crow family - the chough. Is there a connection between this bird and Celtic speaking areas?
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Science, Maths & Technology
Fire ecology
This course explores the role of fire as a natural disturbance in ecosystems. It introduces the concept of a fire regime and its influence on the type and distribution of organisms that occur in fire prone ecosystems. It also looks at some of the adaptations of plants that have evolved in these ecosystems and how animals either avoid or exploit ...
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Nature & Environment
Haymaking is critical to our heritage meadows, but is later really better?
Meadows are not just about wildflowers, they’re also about hay as an agricultural crop. But they don’t make it like they used to. PhD student, Vicky Bowskill, explains how researching seasonal changes in the nutritional content of hay can help conserve the UK's precious species-rich floodplain meadows.
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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 ...
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Nature & Environment
Eating for the environment
This free course, Eating for the environment, will explore the links between food, nutrition and environmental sustainability.
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Nature & Environment
Animals at the extremes: polar biology
The extreme challenges of life in the polar regions require the animals who make their habitat there to make many adaptations. This free course, Animals at the extremes: polar biology, explores the polar climate and how animals like reindeer, polar bears, penguins, sea life and even humans manage to survive there. It looks at the adaptations to ...
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Nature & Environment
Introducing mammals
Mammals come in a bewildering variety of shapes and sizes, and yet all species have some characteristics in common. These similarities justify the inclusion of all such diverse types within the single taxonomic group (or class) called the Mammalia. This free course, Introducing mammals, offers a starting point for the study of mammals. It will ...