UW-Madison will offer six Mas­sive Open Online Courses in 2015–16, along with a MOOCs web­site to answer all your ques­tions about this inno­v­a­tive approach to learning.

CALS faculty are involved in teaching two of the new MOOCs:

The Land Ethic Reclaimed: Per­cep­tive Hunt­ing, Aldo Leopold and Con­ser­va­tion, taught by Tim­o­thy Van Dee­len, asso­ciate pro­fes­sor in the Depart­ment of For­est and Wildlife Ecol­ogy; Janet Sil­ber­nagel, pro­fes­sional pro­grams direc­tor and pro­fes­sor of land­scape archi­tec­ture and envi­ron­men­tal stud­ies; and Paul Rob­bins, pro­fes­sor and direc­tor of the Nel­son Insti­tute for Envi­ron­men­tal Studies.

Forests and Humans: From Madi­son to Mada­gas­car, taught by Cather­ine Wood­ward, fac­ulty asso­ciate at WISCIENCE and asso­ciate fac­ulty asso­ciate at the Nel­son Insti­tute for Envi­ron­men­tal Stud­ies. It also includes con­tri­bu­tions from Tom Gower, head of the Depart­ment of Forestry and Envi­ron­men­tal Resources at North Car­olina State University.

The other four MOOCs:

Chang­ing Weather and Cli­mate in the Great Lakes Region, taught by Steven Ack­er­man, pro­fes­sor of atmos­pheric and oceanic sci­ences, and Mar­garet Mooney, senior out­reach spe­cial­ist for the Space Sci­ence and Engi­neer­ing Center.

Energy and the Earth, taught by Alan Car­roll, pro­fes­sor in the Depart­ment of Geoscience.

Shake­speare in Com­mu­nity, taught by Jesse Stom­mel, assis­tant pro­fes­sor in the Depart­ment of Lib­eral Arts and Applied Stud­ies; Sarah Marty, fac­ulty asso­ciate in the Depart­ment of Lib­eral Arts and Applied Stud­ies; and R L Wid­mann, asso­ciate pro­fes­sor of Eng­lish at the Uni­ver­sity of Col­orado Boulder.

Cli­mate Change and Pub­lic Health, taught by Jonathan Patz, pro­fes­sor and direc­tor of the Global Health Institute.

Mas­sive Open Online Courses allow peo­ple from around the globe to par­tic­i­pate in free, non­credit classes. Par­tic­i­pants go on the Inter­net to watch videos, par­tic­i­pate in dis­cus­sion forums, read arti­cles and some­times take quizzes. The UW-Madison’s first slate of MOOCs fea­tured four courses that reached more than 135,600 reg­is­trants from over a hun­dred coun­tries and all 50 states.

To sign up for infor­ma­tion on UW-Madison MOOCs, click here.