Earth and Life

Syllabus

• Week 1

  The formation of the Earth

  • Welcome to the course

    We will begin by building our planet from the ground up, exploring its violent early history and assessing the possibilities for where life may have first arisen.

  • From dust to a planet

    How do you build a planet? Here we will look at how the Earth and Mars were built from a sea of gas and dust, and how these barren rocky bodies eventually became watery worlds.

  • The Late Heavy Bombardment

    Here we'll learn about a violent period in Earth's history, a time when the inner planets of the Solar System were assaulted by space debris for hundreds of thousands of years, and what this meant for life.

  • The origins of life on the early Earth

    Let’s explore how life might have arisen on the early Earth. There are many competing theories and we still don’t know exactly how, where or even when life first arose, but we have some very plausible ideas!

  • Weekly wrap-up

    What a long journey for the Earth this week – from dust grains to a world beginning to spawn the chemistry for life! Here we'll recap some key concepts and look forward to next week, where we'll be exploring the Earth's structure.

• Week 2

  How the Earth works

  • Welcome to Week 2

    This week we'll start to explore what the Earth is made of. We'll look beneath its crust, track how the continents have moved across its surface and learn how we are searching for signatures of life within the geological record.

  • What is the Earth made of?

    Here we’ll explore how the Earth is layered with a solid and liquid core, convecting mantle and crust. We will also see how scientists study the inner workings of the Earth despite not being able to access them directly.

  • The Earth's movements

    Now let's look at how the Earth moves and the impact this has on planetary habitability. Understanding the internal mechanics of the Earth is helping us to understand what's going on under the surface of Mars.

  • The geological record

    Next we’ll learn about the geological record: the history of the Earth that helps us navigate our past. We'll also explore how we work out how old rocks are, and what signatures of life buried within the rock record look like.

  • Weekly wrap-up

    Now that we know the structure of the Earth and can interpret the geological record, we will recap some useful concepts and see how this knowledge can help us to navigate the timings of the evolution of life on Earth.

• Week 3

  The history of life

  • Welcome to Week 3

    The history of life on Earth is a fascinating tale with every conceivable character you can imagine. In this final week of the course, let’s meet our ancestors!

  • The earliest life

    Let’s meet the oldest ancestor of all life alive today, LUCA, and explore the tree of life. We will also be introduced to our single-celled relatives and learn about the rise of oxygen on the Earth.

  • Multicellular life

    Here we will see the consequences of rising oxygen levels on the Earth, for both life and the planet, and we’ll explore how life flourished in this new oxygen-laden environment.

  • Mass extinctions

    Mass extinctions are catastrophic events that have occurred a few times in Earth’s history, wiping out nearly all organisms on the planet and changing the course of life forever. Are we at risk of an extinction-level event today?

  • Course wrap-up

    This week we have covered planetary formation, the origins and evolution of life and extinctions. Now it is time to wrap-up and consolidate everything we have learnt in this course.

Who will you learn with?