In football, does the home team really have an advantage? Does dribbling the basketball before shooting a free throw increase the odds of scoring? Where should a goalie stand to block the most penalty kicks? Explore the science of statistical reasoning with an emphasis on practical application in sports. Learn classic statistical techniques, including how to determine averages and standard deviations to compare quantitative and qualitative variables across data sets.

What does a subatomic particle measured in femtometers have in common with a galaxy measured in light years? Both are a part of humans’ effort to quantify our world. In this course, you’ll explore numbers, from the miniscule to the unimaginably large, and learn how they help explain natural phenomena such as time, distance, and temperature. Moving beyond traditional arithmetic, you and your classmates will consider questions like: how much dog food would you need if your dog were the size of a dinosaur?

This course explores methods of computer programming—the algorithmic aspects of computer science and the theoretical constructs common to all high-level programming languages. You and your classmates will study the syntax and basic commands of a programming language such as Java, C, C++, or Python and, building upon this knowledge, move on to study additional concepts of programming, such as object-oriented programming or graphical user interfaces.

Learn how digital artists animate the mouth of a Toy Story character by manipulating a single point on a polygon, or how combinations are applied to turn three unique robot designs into 3,000 individual robots for background characters in Wall-E. How many helium-filled balloons does it take to fly? What do combinatorics, geometric modeling, and trigonometry have in common? All are mathematical questions answered every day by animators at Pixar Studios.

From microscopic investigation to the basics of veterinary medicine, this course explores the principles of comparative animal anatomy, physiology, and genetics. You will learn key concepts of zoology such as characteristics of the animal cell, heredity, taxonomy, and evolution, including natural selection. Through laboratory dissections of animals ranging from perch to rats, you’ll explore the different systems of each species—digestive, nervous, immune, endocrine, reproductive, and circulatory.

The first transistor, created at Bell Laboratories in 1947, was about 4 centimeters in size. Today, millions of transistors fit on a single computer processor chip—about the size of a postage stamp. Innovations like these are hallmarks of the exciting and challenging field of electrical engineering. This course explores foundational concepts, starting with electromagnetism. You’ll map the electric field lines generated by an electric charge and investigate current, voltage, resistance, energy, and magnetism.

Bring your experiences to life on the page in this personal essay course. Through 10 assignments, we’ll experiment with different essay formats to describe scenes, illustrate conflicts, narrate events, share memories, and extract meaning for yourself and your readers. As you progress through the course, you will use your senses to create vivid descriptions, observe and choose details that convey your perspective to readers, imagine experiences and describe events from other points of view, and deconstruct essays and use them to create new works of writing.

What do your T-shirt, water bottle, and DNA have in common? They’re all made of chemical units called monomers, which combine to form polymers. To make the world a better place, scientists regularly modify and improve polymers—that’s how we have things like non-stick pans, raincoats, and toothbrushes.

Develop strategies for solving a wide variety of word problems using resources from Ken Johnson and Ted Herr’s Problem Solving Strategies: Crossing the River with Dogs and Other Mathematical Adventures. Explore diagrams, systematic lists, elimination, working backwards, matrix logic, and unit analysis as you strengthen your ability to use these strategies to solve a wide variety of complex problems.

What are the key indicators of an economy’s performance? How do governments craft policies that promote economic growth? What does it mean for a country to have a trade deficit? Analyzing economies at an aggregate level, macroeconomics explores questions such as these, providing a bird’s-eye view of economic activity. This course surveys fundamental concepts in macroeconomics, including money, banking, inflation, employment, national income, economic growth, financial markets, and the role of public policy.