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level 2: intermediate icon
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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Science, Maths & Technology
Systems Thinking: Free courses
A guide to all our free course offerings that explore systems as a subject in its own right, and subjects which can be understood through the application of systems thinking
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level 3: advanced icon
Science, Maths & Technology
Introduction to polymers
This free course, Introduction to polymers, examines the use of polymers and demonstrates how their properties are controlled by their molecular structure. You will learn how this structure determines which polymer to use for a particular product. You will also explore the manufacturing techniques used and the how the use of polymerisation can ...
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Science, Maths & Technology
Bang challenge: Escape the airtight room
Trapped, and your oxygen is running out. Can your science skills get the door to this airtight room to open in time?
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Science, Maths & Technology
Design and Sustainability
Are you aware of the environmental impacts of the stuff you buy? Is that chair you bought made from wood from a sustainable forest, or was it illegally logged ? Or perhaps your TV set's inner parts are too difficult to recycle or cause pollution when it’s dismantled at the end of its life. All this adds up to a huge amount of damage to the ...
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level 2: intermediate icon
Science, Maths & Technology
A tour of the cell
This free course, A tour of the cell, contains a blend of text and a multimedia interactive component to look at the uniformity and diversity within cells. Fundamental to understanding how cells 'work' is a knowledge of the subcellular components and how they are arranged. This is introduced through a series of in-text and self-assessment ...
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Nature & Environment
Exploring the depth of the Antarctic ice sheet...
(...Within the comfort of my office and a computer model). Andreas Wernecke explains his research at The Open University.
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Science, Maths & Technology
The Silver Bridge Disaster: Stresses and strains
The 1967 collapse of the Silver Bridge was a human tragedy - 46 people died - and an engineering mystery: why did a bridge built to last a century not make 40 years? Part 2: Stresses and strains
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Science, Maths & Technology
How does the human body fight a viral infection?
Some individuals generate an effective immune response to COVID-19. Why? Discover the immune response to viral infection in this explainer article...
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Education & Development
OpenLearn supports Get Online Week
Get Online Week is an annual campaign to support those who don’t have access to a device or data to get connected. It has helped hundreds of thousands of people to get online for the first time and improve their digital skills.
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Science, Maths & Technology
Here's how we can save the car – and the planet at the same time
Alexandre Rodrigues discusses how we can balance saving our most popular form of transportation and the planet we live on at the same time.
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Science, Maths & Technology
Night sky puts on a meteor shower to celebrate Rosetta’s closest approach to the sun
The Perseids coincide with Rosetta making its closest approach to the Sun, explains Monica Grady.