UIUC - Emergence of Life
- Offered byCoursera
Emergence of Life at Coursera Overview
Duration | 45 hours |
Total fee | Free |
Mode of learning | Online |
Difficulty level | Beginner |
Official Website | Explore Free Course  |
Credential | Certificate |
Emergence of Life at Coursera Highlights
- Shareable Certificate Earn a Certificate upon completion
- 100% online Start instantly and learn at your own schedule.
- Flexible deadlines Reset deadlines in accordance to your schedule.
- Beginner Level
- Approx. 45 hours to complete
- English Subtitles: French, Portuguese (European), Russian, English, Spanish, Romanian
Emergence of Life at Coursera Course details
- How did life emerge on Earth? How have life and Earth co-evolved through geological time? Is life elsewhere in the universe? Take a look through the 4-billion-year history of life on Earth through the lens of the modern Tree of Life!
- This course will evaluate the entire history of life on Earth within the context of our cutting-edge understanding of the Tree of Life. This includes the pioneering work of Professor Carl Woese on the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign campus which revolutionized our understanding with a new "Tree of Life." Other themes include:
- -Reconnaissance of ancient primordial life before the first cell evolved
- -The entire ~4-billion-year development of single- and multi-celled life through the lens of the Tree of Life
- -The influence of Earth system processes (meteor impacts, volcanoes, ice sheets) on shaping and structuring the Tree of Life
- This synthesis emphasizes the universality of the emergence of life as a prelude for the search for extraterrestrial life.
Emergence of Life at Coursera Curriculum
Orientation
Emergence of Life Trailer
Welcome to the Emergence of Life!
Welcome to Emergence of Life!
Syllabus
Updating Your Profile
Social Media
About the Discussion Forums
How Graded Discussions Work
Discussion Rubric
Paper Assignment Rubric
Orientation Quiz
1.1. Scientific World View
1.2. Philosophical Benchmarks in Science
1.3. Scientific Inquiry vs Scientific Method
1.4. The Scale of Time and Space: Powers of Ten
1.5. NASA?s Greeting Card to Aliens: The Golden Record
1.6. Deep Geological Time
1.7. The Structure of the Solar System
1.8. Birth of the Earth
1.9. The Perfect Storm: A Recipe for Life
Week 1 Overview
Week 1 Quiz A
Week 1 Quiz B
Week 2 - The Tree of Life and Early Earth Environments
2.1. The Scientific Inquiry of Carl Woese
2.2. The Place of Carl Woese in Evolutionary Biology
2.3. Revolution of the Tree of Life
2.4. Evolution of the Tree of Life
2.5. How Did Life Emerge?
2.6. The Genetic Code and Evolutionary Theory
2.7. Throwing Rocks at Earth: The Martian Meteorite
2.8. Microbial Mats and Stromatolites: Laying Down On the Job
2.9. Oxygenation of the Atmosphere
2.10. Snowball Earth; It Did Freeze Over!
Week 2 Overview
Who Was Carl Woese?
Paper Assignment 1 Information
Week 2 Quiz A
Week 2 Quiz B
Week 3 - Fossilization and Precambrian Life-Earth Interaction
3.1. DCSI: Dino Crime Scene Investigators
3.2. Ancient Forensic Science: Fossilization
3.3. Getting Old and Well-Preserved: Modes of Preservation
3.4. Our Spineless Friends: The Invertebrates
3.5. Lifestyles of the Rich and Fossilized
3.6. Trying to Make a Living: Fossil Feeding Modes
3.7. The Great Experiment of the Ediacaran Fauna
Week 3 Overview
Week 3 Quiz A
Week 3 Quiz B
Week 4 - Paleozoic Life After the Advent of Skeletons
4.1. Cycles of Radiation and Extinction
4.2. Cambrian Explosion
4.3. Cambrian Fauna: Origin of Vertebrates
4.4. Burgess Shale Experiment
4.5. Invertebrates: Successes of Life Without a Backbone
4.6. Paleozoic Fauna
4.7. Vertebrates: Successes of Life With a Backbone
4.8. Evolution of Jaws and Perfecting Predation
4.9. Heavily Armored Fish Without Jaws
4.10. Fish Evolution: Hook, Line, and Sinker
Week 4 Overview
Paper Assignment 2 Information
Week 4 Quiz A
Week 4 Quiz B
Week 5 - Paleozoic Plants, Reptiles, and the Transition to Land
5.1. Plants Invade the Land and Sea
5.2. Early Prevascular Plants
5.3. Takeover of the Vascular Plants
5.4. Pennsylvanian Greenhouse Earth
5.5. Rise of the Reptiles
5.6. Reptiles Heating Up: Thermal Regulation
5.7. Diapsids and Synapsids: Ships Passing in the Night
Week 5 Overview
Week 5 Quiz A
Week 5 Quiz B
Week 6 - Mesozoic Reign of the Dinosaurs and the Development of Flight
6.1. Symbiosis as a Strategy of Survival
6.2. Rise of the Diapsids
6.3. Pterosaurs: The ONLY Flying Reptiles
6.4. Dinosaur Phylogeny: Hips Don't Lie
6.5. Evolution of Flight: Life Invades the Sky
6.6. Wild Wings: Fit to Fly
6.7. Cretaceous Warming on a Reorganized Earth
6.8. T. rex, and the Crater of Doom
Week 6 Overview
Paper Assignment 3 Information
Week 6 Quiz A
Week 6 Quiz B
Week 7 - Cenozoic Mammals and Global Environmental Change
7.1. House of the Rising Mammals
7.2. Mammals Conquer the Earth
7.3. Big is Beautiful
7.4. Sophistication of Mammal Skulls
7.5. Mammalian Dentition: My, What Big Teeth You Have!
7.6. Mammals: Taxonomy is in the Eye of the Beholder
7.7. Mammal-Marsupial Exchange: There Goes the Neighborhood
7.8. The Primates
7.9. The Rise of Humans: Getting a Leg Up on the Competition
7.10. Early Hominids: Trees versus Savannahs
Week 7 Overview
Week 7 Quiz A
Week 7 Quiz B
Week 8 - Astrobiology and the Search for Life in the Cosmos
8.1. NASA Astrobiology: Roadmap to Life in the Universe
8.2. NASA: A Platform for Inter-Disciplinary Science
8.3. Mars Flybys and Orbiters: Getting the Picture
8.4. Mars Rovers: Was the Red Planet Habitable?
8.5. NASA Future Missions
8.6. NASA Institute for Universal Biology
8.7. Think and Wonder?Wonder and Think
8.8. The Emergence of Life: Course Synthesis
Emergence of Life Outtakes
Week 8 Quiz A Video 1: Curiosity Completes Its First Martian Year
Week 8 Quiz A Video 2: One Year to Pluto
Week 8 Overview
Week 8 Quiz A
Week 8 Quiz B
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