These tell the story of why Planet Earth is Habitable. This story takes in everything from physics to botany to politics. Here the story is told by students from around South Africa who have researched the topic to present to you. They have done a very good job at this, yet do not cover everything, offering you the ideal chance to practice “scientific skepticism”. Try and think about what questions we should ask to find out more. You will have a chance to grill the presenters at a later stage.

Every now and then we will have a lecture and/or video clip that develops some of the ideas from the course. These are generally given by more senior scientists. Sometimes these may be done live as part of a science online Hangout. 

Reading never feels as fun or captivating as a video, yet in this modern age it seems that reading is apparently still useful (you are doing it now for example). The reading list both reinforces and develops ideas from the lectures. Why not stop mindlessly scrolling through Insta and read something thought-provoking for a change.? You know we are talking to you, right??

 It turns out that South Africa is a unique and exceptional region of the world. This multimedia feature section highlights why this is so in the context of each week's lectures.

One of the key skills we teach at Habitable Planet is critical thinking. In this section, a scientist will cast a critical eye over the material presented to try and develop these skills. Note that this is intended to be a prompt to try and motivate you to be equally critical of the science you are watching. Why not make a video in response too? We’ll publish it.

These are online events where you get to pose questions to scientists from the fields of study you have recently learned about. It's your chance to put critical thinking into practice and to clarify anything you didn’t understand. The events are at a specific time (see the “what's coming up section” on each week's lecture page), but will be recorded for you to view later if you can’t make it. To attend you just need to have a good internet connection. We will organise several local group viewings around the country so that you watch the online event together with other course participants. There might even be food. You can also ask questions as we go along (see below).

This is generally just something silly. It is probably, but not necessarily, related to the material presented!

You have to write tests to complete the course, sorry. We need to find out if you learned anything to prove to our bosses that we deserve our jobs. Also, for those based in South Africa, and who are vaccinated against COVID-19,  there is a chance to come to join us for a physical workshop at UJ in December. However, we only have places for those who do best on the tests.