Science Essentials

In this course, we are going to explore science “essentials” — core content and concepts necessary for a strong foundation in science, which will help prepare you to take on challenging science problems. Whether you’re just starting out or looking to refresh your knowledge on a topic, this course is designed to offer an engaging opportunity to explore key concepts through problem solving.

You'll learn about the scientific process that drives science as well as topics such as matter, energy, and heat. By the end of this course, you'll have built up a scientific toolbox of important concepts to help in your pursuit of knowledge!

• Introduction to Science: What is science and how is it approached?
• Skeptical Empiricism: What sort of evidence do you need to call something true?
• What is Science?: Learn how the scientific method works by unpacking the discovery of the world's first vaccine.
• Organization of Knowledge: Knowledge isn't simply the accumulation of facts, it's knowing how new facts should change what we think.
• The Scientific Process: Explore the dynamic scientific inquiry process by venturing to an alien planet.
• Observations, Questions, Hypotheses: How do we transform our hunches and suspicions into proper scientific questions?
• Experimental Design: Is it the magnet in your bracelet that's making you feel better, or just the placebo effect?
• Planning Our Experiment: Learn how to design controlled experiments as an interplanetary zoologist.
• Data Collection: Experimental data can come in many forms depending on the question we're answering.
• Data Analysis & Interpretation: Interpret the results of your experiment and learn the common ways that scientists visualize data.
• Measurement: Add critical measurement tools to your belt including scientific notation, unit conversions, and estimations.
• Units: Units are the number one way to make sure you're not comparing apples and oranges.
• Scientific Notation: We can think of 5 apples, but what about 5 trillion of them? Learn how to keep big numbers under control.
• Scientific Notation: Negative Exponents: A speck of dust and a grain of sand may seem equally forgettable, but one is a billion times heavier.
• Unit Conversion: SI Prefixes: Learn about reference units scientists use to think about other scales, from the atom to the cosmos.
• Unit Conversion: Conversion Factors: If you have 10 kg of split pea soup, is it enough to fill 100 soup bowls?
• Estimations: What can you do when you need an answer but don't have all the information?
• Matter: Explore atomic matter, which makes up everything you can touch and feel.
• Matter: What does everything in the universe that takes up space have in common?
• Density: What do we really mean when we say that a material is "heavy"?
• States of Matter: Heat an ice cube and it'll turn from solid to liquid to gas — and have different behavior in each phase.
• The Atom: If civilization comes to an end and you can leave one message for the future, tell them that atoms exist.
• Motion: What's the difference between speed, velocity, and acceleration?
• Distance and Displacement: How long you've walked isn't always how far you've traveled.
• Speed and Velocity: What's the point of moving fast if you don't know where you're going?
• Acceleration: When your speed has a speed, it's time to learn about acceleration.
• Forces: Your introduction to forces and Newton's Laws.
• What is Force?: It's when push ≠ pull.
• Newton's 1st and 2nd Laws: All the movement you see in the world comes from the connection between force and motion.
• Newton's 3rd Law: You can't push on something without that something pushing back on you.
• Tour de Force: Get acquainted with the range of forces we encounter in the real world.
• Drag: Learn how air slows things down and why you'd never want to skydive on the Moon.
• Energy: Learn about energy through roller coasters, skydiving, and carnival games.
• What is Energy?: Nature has a price for things to change, and it's paid in energy.
• Potential Energy: How can we store energy now to do useful things in the future?
• Kinetic Energy: How much energy does an object have due to its motion alone?
• Conservation of Energy: When it comes down to it, you can only spend the energy you already have.
• Energy Complexities: Sharpen your understanding of energy conservation with a daring skydiver.
• Energy Scavenger Hunt: Put it all together and track how energy is exchanged and transformed in everyday situations.
• Heat: Learn about heat, temperature, and thermal equilibrium.
• Temperature: Hot or cold, temperature comes from random motion at the molecular scale.
• Heat: Cold coffee in a thermos stays cold and hot coffee in a thermos stays hot. How does the thermos know?
• Heat Capacity: A steel marble and a plastic marble are at the same temperature. Only one of them melts an ice cube. Why?
• Heat Transfer Mechanisms: Heat flows from hot to cold, but how does it get there? Learn about the three kinds of heat transfer.