Conclusion

Well done! Using the size–time explorer, you have explored many different scales in space and time, centred around an oak tree. Through this you have strengthened your ability to manipulate small and large numbers as well as developed or deepened an appreciation of the huge range of scales encountered in science, across multiple disciplines. 

The activities encouraged you to make connections between the various scale levels, and therefore appreciate the implication of fast and slow processes as well as the influence of big and small objects on each other. Hopefully you also have appreciation for how knowledge from different scientific disciplines contribute to each other.

At the beginning of the course you watched a video of physicists, chemists, biologists and geologists talking about how they saw the oak tree, where they spoke about massive forces and miniscule molecules, and processes that occur over milliseconds and millennia. Having completed this course, you should now have a new appreciation of scales at which processes are happening all around you too.

This OpenLearn course is an adapted extract from the Open University course S112 Science: concepts and practice [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] .