This origins of life course consists of six units.
Each unit is divided up into varying numbers of sub-units.
At the end of each sub-unit,
you will find a quiz that contains one to four questions.
These quizzes do not count towards your grade
and are meant to check your comprehension
of the material up to that point.
We will also have optional activities in two of the units
to help reinforce the material.
Your final grade will be determined by the unit exams
and one peer reviewed assignment.
You will see six unit exams throughout the course.
We'll give you more details on the peer review assignment
later in the course.
To receive your certificate of completion,
you will need to get a cumulative score of 60 percent or greater.
We also want to take a moment to remind you of the discussion forums.
As this course aims to present origins of life
from a diversity of perspectives,
the discussion forum should be a rich and lively place
to discuss this open area of investigation.
Please be respectful of other students' perspectives
and encourage expansive, creative explorations
of origins of life research.
This course is divided into the following units -
an introduction, chemical origins, chemical commonalities,
early life, evolution, and finally, astrobiology and general theories of life.
In the introduction, we will go over some of the overarching ideas
required for thinking about the origins of life.
We will then move on to a presentation of chemical origins
where we discuss the chemistry of the early Earth
and the foundation of chemical processes connected with life.
Next, we move on to describe the biochemistry of life,
and what is chemically common to all of life in more detail.
We spend units four and five discussing the early evolution of life
and evolutionary processes in general.
Finally, we conclude the course with broad perspectives
on how origins of life research applies to astrobiology
and connects to general theories of life.