Lectures at JPL

The von Kármán Lecture Series at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory is available at JPL. The videos of 2008 lectures are available for download now. In addition, you'll find the January 2009 lecture, "Spirit and Opportunity: The Corps of Discovery for Mars Rolls On", by Steve Squires.


Also available is the list of scheduled lectures for 2009. For lifelong learners interested in astronomy and our exploration of the universe, these full-length lectures are a treasure trove of current and historical information

Geobiology at MIT

One of MIT Open Courseware offerings is 12.007 Geobiology. This course uses Steven Stanley's Earth System History and additional readings are recommended. Lecture slides (pdf's) and text lecture notes are available. Several assignments give lifelong learners guidance on how to structure learning projects. "Take-home" exams top off the materials offered.

The course home page uses this description: "The interactive Earth system: Biology in geologic, environmental and climate change throughout Earth history. Since life began it has continually shaped and re-shaped the atmosphere, hydrosphere, cryosphere and the solid earth. Introduces the concept of "life as a geological agent" and examines the interaction between biology and the earth system during the roughly 4 billion years since life first appeared. Topics include the origin of the solar system and the early Earth atmosphere; the origin and evolution of life and its influence on climate up through and including the modern age and the problem of global warming; the global carbon cycle; and astrobiology."

Even without podcasts, which we are always expecting in our courses now, this is an excellent independent scholar's resource.

Just a side note: The image used on the course home page is one of Ron Blakey's great maps. See this post on The Coconino Chronicles.

Astrobiology at University of Hawaii

This Spring 2008 course, A281 -- Astrobiology, taught by astronomer Karen Meech, is a great course, with syllabus, lecture slides, handouts and homeworks available for download.

The textbook used is Life in the Universe, 2nd edition, by Bennett and Shostak.

The extensive handouts include a 79-page Astrobiology Primer: An Outline of General Knowledge--Version 1, 2006.

Professor Meech is a working astronomer, involved, with the 8th NASA Discovery mission, Deep Impact and many other projects.

You may also want to check out the Institute for Astonomy and the Astrobiology Institute at the University of Hawaii.

Astronomy Lecture Podcasts

The Silicon Valley Astronomy Lectures presented at Foothill College are available as audio podcasts. You can get some of them as video from iTunes. These lectures have been given since 1999, but only 2 sets of podcasts are accessible, twelve lectures. It appears that this year's lectures will be added as they occur.

The lectures include many very interesting topics by notable speakers. The speaker on Oct. 4, 2006, Dr. Alex Filippenko (U. of California, Berkeley): Dark Energy and the Runaway Universe will be familiar. Everyday Scholar profiled his course, Astro C10 / LS C70U Introduction to General Astronomy, at Berkeley, on August 3, 2008.

Thanks to the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, Foothill College and Andrew Fraknoi for this great resource for lifelong learners.

Jet Propulsion Laboratory Blog

JPL Blog--this is going to be so good. Only two posts so far, but this one already looks like a winner.

July 14, 2008Here We Are … at Saturn - by Bob Pappalardo (project scientist for the Cassini Equinox Mission to Saturn.) Update on what's going on four years after the Cassini spacecraft entered orbit around Saturn.

July 17, 2008--Water Ice and Soil Samples on Mars - by Deborah Bass (deputy project scientist for the Phoenix mission to Mars, part of the science team studying findings from the lander.) Lots of behind the scenes insight.

I already have this on my home page. Thanks JPL. We are going to look forward to every one of these posts.

Astrobiology Course at Berkeley

Something else from Berkeley. Integrative Biology 167, Fall 2004, Astrobiology: The Scientific Search for Life in the Universe. No podcasts as far as I can tell, but this is a course website with the syllabus, lecture pdf's, readings and some excellent links (a few of the links are broken, but for the most part they are active and lead to lots of information.)

Sometimes older course lectures are a bit, well old, but I think you'll find these lecture slides extremely helpful if you're looking for astrobiology study resources.

Also, check out the book companion website, Life in the Universe by Bennett, Shostak, Jakosky.