Develop a greater appreciation for how the air, water, land, and life formed and have interacted over the last 4.5 billion years.

This course focuses on a basic science understanding that demonstrates how the processes on Earth (including biological processes) lead to natural climate changes that have shaped the planet and the path of evolution. Students are challenged to think of the Earth as an integrated system made up of water, air, ice, land, and life.

For example, students learn that the rise of oxygen in the atmosphere 2.5 billion years ago produced massive extinctions of life on Earth that forever altered the dominant types of single-celled life. Students are exposed to how new scientific discoveries are made through the observations that led to plate tectonics, how the Moon formed, and why dinosaurs went extinct.

Our Earth: Its Climate, History, and Processes (David M. Schultz and colleagues, University of Manchester)