Online Science Courses: Universities Offering Science Classes Online

Science is basically a systemic method to acquire quantifiable knowledge, establishing a knowledge base and using that base to acquire more knowledge. The findings of science now permeate nearly every part of human life. Many different schools offer online science courses, such as the University of California at Santa Cruz, University of Texas, University of Virginia and University of Oregon.

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Learning Science Through Online Courses

Online science courses introduce students to and familiarize them with some aspect of what humanity has learned about the natural world. This is generally accomplished through a combination of readings, graphic demonstrations and videos.

University of California at Santa Cruz: Earth Science - Oceanography

This class provides an expansive introduction to the topic. Lectures will cover the geology of ocean basins and their formation billions of years ago, the interaction between climate and ocean in the formation of waves, currents and hurricanes, the emergence and evolution of life in the oceans and the effect of pollution on ocean ecosystems. Video, computer graphics and web-based visual aids are an important component of lectures and discussion sessions. Course work includes weekly discussion sessions and problems sets that apply simple mathematical concepts to oceanography.

University of Texas: Natural Resource Management

This course explores the application of ecological principles to natural resource management, conservation and restoration from a microscopic to global scale. Topics discussed include the role of law, economics and human institutions advancing or hindering resource management. Students also explore the conflict between human needs and resource preservation and approaches to resolving them and the difficulty of implementing policies in the absence of routine procedures for conservation and restoration. This course emphasizes the need to build up a knowledge base from which such procedures can be established.

University of Oregon: Alternative Energy Sources

This course is an exploration of the costs and benefits of alternative energy sources and the issues affecting their small, medium and large-scale deployment. The course relies on the Internet for information about alternative energy's various forms because the field of alternative energy technology is changing so rapidly. It is arranged as a series of modules with associated homework assignments due at specified times. Students learn about solar, wind, tide, hydroelectric, ocean currents and geothermal energy sources.

University of Virginia: Galileo and Einstein

This history of science course explains how Galileo's insights into the physical nature of celestial objects and Einstein's insights into the relationship between space, time, matter and energy changed perceptions about the natural laws governing humans, the earth and all of the cosmos. The course also reviews the contributions of ancient Greek and Middle Eastern mathematicians and astronomers to science, and Issac Newton's synthesis of his predecessors' findings into a coherent system.

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