Following the success of previous Class Central Study Groups, we’re launching a new one to take Hank Green’s History of Science Crash Course with learners worldwide. The study group welcomes everyone and will include weekly Zoom sessions. You can enroll here!

(And if you’re looking for a tech course, check our Free Web Dev Bootcamp.)

Four months ago, we started our first study group:

• taking online courses with a worldwide community of learners;
• supporting each other in our discussion forum; and
• meeting weekly via Zoom.

In the first iterations, we were lucky to have great professors attending our Zoom meetings, such as David Hik and Zac Robinson (Mountains 101), and Raj Raghunathan (A Life of Happiness and Fulfillment, or ALOHAF). I wrote about my experience in the Mountains 101 Study Group here, and Archisha wrote about the ALOHAF Study Group here.

In every Zoom session, we had discussions before the professor joined. These were warm-ups of sorts, where we talked about our impressions of the course and shared some personal experiences. Once the professor had left at the end, some people stayed behind for another close-and-friendly chat among learners.

Eventually, a question came up: would a learner-guided study group with no tutors involved be a worthwhile experiment?

In this third edition of the study group, we’re gonna try to find out.

Learner-Guided Study Group

This is a good time to introduce myself. Hi! I’m Fabio, a teacher from Brazil. If you’ve been part of a study group before, we’ve probably met: I was in both the Mountains 101 and the ALOHAF Study Group.

I joined those study groups as a learner. But in our upcoming study group, I’ll be both learner and coordinator! I’ll write the weekly announcements, oversee the forums, and lead the Zoom sessions. So it will very much be a study group for learners, by learners. Our goal is to keep fostering a feeling of belonging to a global community.

So, how is this going to work?

Our Plan

Here’s the study group in a nutshell:

• Free online course: History of Science by Crash Course.
• Schedule: 6 weeks long, 2–5 hours a week, starting on Monday, September 13.
• Discussion forum, to discuss our learning and support each other.
• Weekly Zoom sessions, to chat with other study group members.

The Course: History of Science

Previous study groups were built around university courses, often with intense workloads. To try something different, for our next study group, we chose the course History of Science, offered on YouTube by Crash Course, who specialize in making fast-paced, content-rich animated educational series.

The course is taught by science communicator Hank Green, creator of Crash Course and, fun fact, brother of the author John Green. It has subtitles in 7 languages. And since it’s hosted on YouTube, the course is free and easy to access, but it has no certificate. You can watch it directly on Class Central if you want.

The course will take us on a worldwide trip to explore the development of science — from the Greek natural philosophers, to medicine in the Middle East, to the Space Age, to the advent of computers. The course explores how we’ve been trying to understand the universe and life itself, as well as our basis for establishing knowledge: the scientific method.

The course comprises 46 videos. Every week will involve 2–5 hours of commitment. We’ll support each other via a forum. And toward the end of each week, we’ll meet for a one-hour Zoom session to discuss what we’ve learned.

How to Enroll

The History of Science Study Group enrollments are open. Remember: it’s free, online, and open to all. If you’d like to enroll, here’s how:

• If you already have a Class Central account, log into your account here.
• If you don’t have one, create a free account here and verify your email address.
• Finally, go to the History of Science Study Group page here and click on the blue Enroll button.

That’s it! You should receive an email confirming your enrollment. Once you do, you’re all set. The Study Group starts on September 13. But we’ll be in touch before then with details.

Study Schedule

Week 1

Monday, 13th of September

• #0 Course Preview
• #1 Intro to History of Science
• #2 The Presocratics
• #3 Plato and Aristotle
• #4 India
• #5 The Americas and Time keeping
• #6 Roman Engineering
• #7 The Medieval Islamicate World
• #8 Medieval China

Week 2

Monday, 20th of September

• #9 Ancient & Medieval Medicine
• #10 Alchemy
• #11 Cathedrals and Universities
• #12 The Scientific Revolution
• #13 The New Astronomy
• #14 The Scientific Methods
• #15 The New Anatomy
• #16 The Columbian Exchange

Week 3

Monday, 27th of September

• #17 Newton and Leibniz
• #18 The New Chemistry
• #19 Biology Before Darwin
• #20 Earth Science
• #21 The Industrial Revolution
• #22 Darwin and Natural Selection
• #23 Eugenics and Francis Galton
• #24 Microbiology

Week 4

Monday, 4th of October

• #25 Genetics
• #26 Thermodynamics
• #27 Electricity
• #28 Ford, Cars and a New Revolution
• #29 Cinema, Radio, and Television
• #30 The Mind/Brain
• #31 Marie Curie and Spooky Rays
• #32 Einstein’s Revolution

Week 5

Monday, 11th of October

• #33 The Atomic Bomb
• #34 Biomedicine
• #35 Genetics and The Modern Synthesis
• #36 The Computer and Turing
• #37 Air Travel and The Space Race
• #38 Ecology
• #39 Controlling the Environment
• #40 Biotechnology

Week 6

Monday, 18th of October

• #41 Bodies and Dollars
• #42 The Century of the Gene
• #43 The Internet and Computing
• #44 Life and Longevity
• #45 Climate Science
• #46 The Limits of History