There are a wide range of interactions between 'science' and 'the public'. Examples range from visiting a museum, or indulging in a science-related hobby, to reading a newspaper article about a breakthrough in the techniques of therapeutic cloning. Many of these interactions could be said to be 'passive'. This unit explores the practicalities of the public becoming more 'active' in the direction of science practice by 'two-way' interactions, with dialogue taking place between science and some part of 'the public',

Hibernation is an ingenious adaptation that some animals employ to survive difficult conditions in winter. This unit examines the differences between hibernation and torpor, and discusses the characteristic signs of hibernation behavior It explores the triggers that bring on hibernation, and whether internal signals or external season cues are predominant. It also examines the physiological adaptations that occur in hibernating animals.

The extreme challenges of life in the polar regions require the animals who make their habitat there to make many adaptations. This unit explores the polar climate and how animals like reindeer, polar bears, penguins, sea life and even humans manage to survive there. It looks at the adaptations to physiological proceses, the environmental effects on diet, activity and fecundity, and contrasts the strategies of aquatic and land-based animals in surviving in this extreme habitat. This unit builds on and develops ideas from two other 'Animals at the extreme' units: The desert environment (S324_1) and Hibernation and torpor (S324_2).

Animal life has adapted to survive in the most unlikely and inhospitable habitats. This unit looks at the surprisingly diverse desert climates throughout the world and mammals, birds, lizards and amphibians that survive there. It splits these animals into three groups according to their strategy for survival: evaders, evaporators and endurers, then discusses how these strategies work on a biochemical and physiological level.

What does 'attention' mean to you? This unit will help you to examine how we 'pay attention'. How do we manage to single out sounds and images that require attention and how easy is it to distract someone and why?

Successful transitions - whether from lower secondary to upper secondary; at age 16; into work-based training or university; or into work at any age - are life-enhancing for individuals and crucial to our future social and economic well-being. They are also an indicator of a good school. Careers education and guidance (CEG) is therefore at the heart of a school's personal development program and all teachers have a role in securing successful transitions for their students.

Take a new and different look at mental health. This unit invites you to think differently about life's dilemmas by taking account of the views of all concerned, especially people experiencing mental distress. It explores ideas and practice in mental health, and will appeal to a wide range of people.

What does Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus tell us about the author and the time at which the play was written?This unit will help you to discover the intricacies of the play and recognise how a knowledge of the historical and political background of the time can lead to a very different understanding of the author's intended meaning.

Are you ready to face a day in and out the office facing some of the challenges that confront social workers? You'll have to manage your time, avoid getting pulled off track - and take part in a case conference and home visit. Need help? You can find out about the job through extracts from the BBC/OU programme Protecting Our Children.

Participating in the democratic processes is seen as being a fundamental aspect of citizenship. All pupils need a broad knowledge and understanding of the rights, responsibilities and duties of citizens, as well as an understanding of forms of government. Notions of citizenship have been forged alongside the expansion of the right to vote and the development of our ideas about democracy. In this unit we explore different interpretations of democracy and strategies for involving pupils in consideration of these issues within the citizenship curriculum.

Diagrams, charts and graphs are used by all sorts of people to express information in a visual way, whether it's in a report by a colleague or a plan from your interior designer. This unit will teach you how to interpret these tools and how to use them yo

The Egyptians are known for being ahead of their time in comparison to some civilisations that came after them. This unit looks at how the Egyptians solved mathematical problems in everyday life and the technology they used. An understanding of this area has only been possible following the translation of the Rosetta Stone.

Museums give children experiences above and beyond the everyday - experiences that enrich and build upon classroom teaching and learning. Taking pupils to a museum, or bringing museum artifacts into school, instantly changes the dynamics of the usual learning environment. It gives you as a teacher the opportunity to start afresh with each child, to reach and engage with pupils in new and different ways. This unit explores practical ways in which you can make the most of the UK's extraordinarily dynamic and diverse museums and galleries; it gives you pathways into museum resources, and shares examples of teachers and museum educators making the most of museum artifacts

In this unit, we describe the theory of evolution by natural selection as proposed by Charles Darwin in his book, first published in 1859, On The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. We will look at natural selection as Darwin did, taking inheritance for granted, but ignoring the mechanisms underlying it.

Graphs are a common way of presenting information. However, like any other type of representation, graphs rely on shared understandings of symbols and styles to convey meaning. Also, graphs are normally drawn specifically with the intention of presenting information in a particularly favorable or unfavorable light, to convince you of an argument or to influence your decisions.

This unit explores school geography, focusing upon how geography is currently being taught and understood. While studying this unit you will read about the significance of geography as a subject, looking at differing views as to exactly which disciplines make up geography. The unit also includes a lesson plan and a look at definitions of geography as a medium of education.

Geometry is concerned with the various aspects of size, shape and space. In this unit, you will explore the concepts of angles, shapes, symmetry, area and volume through interactive activities.

Latin is the basis for many languages in the world. This unit will provide you with a general introduction to learning Latin allowing you to assess whether you would like to learn more. You will look at the links that exist between Latin and English, examine the structure of sentences and gain an awareness of the fundamentals of pronunciation in Latin.

Handling statistical data is an essential part of psychological research. However, many people find the idea of using statistics, and especially statistical software packages, extremely daunting. This unit takes a step-by-step approach to statistics softw

Are you always the quiet one when it comes to group discussion? This unit will help you improve your working relationships with other people in groups of three or more. This unit also deals with project life cycles, project management and the role of the leader.

To be able to understand the importance of the environment for our health, we need to know a little about the interdependence between environment and humankind. This unit will look at interactions between plants, animals and the physical and chemical environment, as well as considering ways in which humans have altered, and are altering this environment. These changes have health implications that are not always immediately obvious. Frequently, we initiate changes that are going to have their effects some time in the future, and we will be looking at the legacies that we leave to future generations. We move on to consider our own demise, and ask what exactly it is that we think we will be leaving for those who follow.

Hearing is a familiar and important human sense that is a topic naturally of interest to those who are curious about human biology. This unit will enable you to relate what you read to your own sensory experiences - and indeed many of the questions asked have exactly that function. This unit will be best understood by those with some biological understanding.

Accounts of Caravaggio's life are filled with suggestions of murder and intrigue. But does knowing more about this dark artist's experiences help us to interpret his art? Or does understanding his motivations cloud their true meaning? This unit explores the biographical monograph, one of the most common forms of art history writing.

The heritage traditions of Scotland are unique in comparison to the rest of Britain. This unit uses two case studies to demonstrate how heritage sites have helped to forge the Scottish national identity and history.

Ever wondered what it would be like to study philosophy? This unit will introduce you to the teaching methods employed and the types of activities and assignments you would be asked to undertake should you wish to study OU course A211 Philosophy and the human situation.

How do we learn about the world of the ancient Romans and Greeks? This unit will provide you with an insight into the Classical world by introducing you to the various sources of information used by scholars to draw together an image of this fascinating period of history.

This unit focuses on higher level skills. Skills development is complementary to other learning - it cannot be done in isolation. The higher level skills in this material aim to raise your awareness of the processes of learning and development - other subject-based material must supply the context and motivation for this. Key skills underpin the ability to carry out successfully, and improve on, a wide range of tasks in higher education, employment and wherever there is a continuation of learning. We hope that you will study this unit over a period of time in conjunction with a course or work situation. For example, you may complete 1 hour per week for selected skills over a 40-week period.

Fossils are a glimpse into the distant past and fascinate young and old alike. This unit will introduce you to the explosion of evolution that took place during the Palaeozoic era. You will look at the many different types of creatures that existed at that time and how they managed to evolve to exist on land.

A decade ago, the possibility of a link between the MMR vaccine and autism hit the media. Fear of the vaccine spread rapidly and, despite an almost unanimous consensus that the claim was unfounded, still persists today. In this unit, we'll examine why this controversy took on such a life of its own and why parents still agonise about the vaccine.

This is an introductory-level course designed for global post-secondary educators interested in learning more about open education, open educational resources (OER), and open educational practices (OEP). The purpose of the course is to increase awareness and use of OER as part of global teaching and learning, and to connect education communities with each other. Participation within the course discussion forums requires enrolment through the OpenLearn system and may enrich your learning experience through interactions. There will also be social media and blogging opportunities to connect through Twitter and other spaces that you choose.

Coastal environments are by their nature ever-changing. This unit looks at the example of the Blackwater Estuary in Essex, England, describing how the current state of the estuary came to be. It examines the contests and conflicts that center on the estuary in terms of managing the environment for human needs and the needs of the other species who make their habitat there.

In this unit you will see first how to convert vectors from geometric form, in terms of a magnitude and direction, to component form, and then how conversion in the opposite sense is accomplished. The ability to convert between these different forms of a vector is useful in certain problems involving displacement and velocity, as shown in Section‘_2, in which you will also work with bearings.

This unit is the first in the MSXR209 series of five units that introduce the idea of modelling with mathematics. This unit centres on a mathematical model of how pollution levels in the Great Lakes of North America vary over a period of time. It demonstrates that, by keeping the model as simple as possible extremely complex systems can be understood and predicted.

This unit helps you understand the properties of nucleotides and how they contribute to secondary and tertiary structures of nucleic acids at the molecular level. You will learn about the different composition and roles of nucleic acids in the cell, their interactions with each other and the use of ribozymes, aptamers, antisense and hybridization as tools in molecular research. The unit covers the function of DNA packaging within the cell, the interactions between the DNA double helix and the nucleosome and it helps you understand the various chromatin states within the interphase nucleus.

This unit examines the area of the brain based learning with a particular focus on the development of the young child's brain and is of particular relevance to those who work with young children. We begin by looking at the structure and functions of the brain, and the impact that sensory deprivation can have on these. We consider the implications of current understandings of brain development for teaching and learning, particularly in an early years setting, and finish by exploring the value of play (particularly outdoor play) in children's learning and the development of their brains.

From politics to cookery, ratios, proportions and percentages are part of everyday life. This unit is designed to help you become more familiar with how figures can be manipulated, then you can check whether that discount really is as big as they claim!

How do"welfare to work' programs such as the New Deal take into account and shape people's personal lives? This unit looks at how participation in, and drop-out from,"workfare' programs are interpreted within different theoretical perspectives, and uses two case studies to connect the theory with the reality of people's lives.

The Roman emperor had key relationships with several differing groups within the Roman empire, including the senate, the populace of Rome, the army and the provinces. This unit will focus on exploring the emperor's relationship with the provinces and will show you how this relationship was represented and mediated, manifesting the culture of the empire in the figure of the emperor.

Since the invention of the phonograph in 1877, the recording and playback of sound has been a key element of life in the western world. This unit traces the technology and characters of the sound recording industry as it advances from Edison's original phonograph to the formats we know today.

This unit looks at the short poems in German that were set to music by Franz Schubert (1797-1828) for a single voice with piano, a genre known as 'Lieder' (the German for 'songs'). Once they became widely known, Schubert's Lieder influenced generations of songwriters up to the present day. This unit then discusses a selection of Schubert's settings of Goethe's poems, and recordings of all of them are provided. You can find the poems, in German with parallel translations into English and the music scores of four of the song settings, on the unit home page. You are not expected to be able to read the music, but even if you are not very familiar with musical notation, you may well find the scores useful in identifying what is happening in the songs.