ScienceThe ProfessorBeginner
Life and the Living Universe course icon

Life and the Living Universe

Like Duolingo, but for Life and the Living Universe. Tomo turns the whole topic into a game you play five minutes a day, until it actually sticks.

For the part of you with thirty open tabs that never became anything.

36 bite-size levelsAbout 5 minutes each

Free forever · No credit card · iPhone & Android

Cosmo the Chameleon
Life and the Living Universe
with Cosmo the Chameleon
36
Levels
5
Sections
5
Min/day
What you'll learn

Key ideas in Life and the Living Universe

  • Earth is a closed system for matter
  • Sunlight provides the external energy needed for life
  • New resources like water and minerals do not arrive from space
  • Heat radiates back out into space
  • Life depends on recycling existing atoms
  • Matter stays inside while energy flows through
  • The atmosphere acts as a physical barrier to meteors
  • Gravity holds gases and liquids to the planet's surface
  • Specific layers filter out dangerous solar rays
  • Smaller planets with weak gravity often lose their atmospheres
  • Distinguishing the protective roles of the atmosphere
  • The atmosphere regulates temperature like a blanket
  • The 'void' of space would otherwise suck away unanchored matter
  • Identifying energy as the only external input/output
  • Recognizing gravity's role in retaining the atmosphere and hydrosphere
  • Distance from the sun determines surface temperature
Why not just Google it

You've tried the other tabs

Wikipedia

Thirty open tabs. Four facts you actually kept.

YouTube

You watched. You nodded. By Sunday it was gone.

ChatGPT

One answer, then back to scrolling.

Online courses

Eight weeks. You meant to finish. You didn't.

Tomo gives Life and the Living Universe the Duolingo treatment: levels, streaks, and quick quizzes that test what you just learned. That game loop is what the tabs above never had, so it's the one you actually finish.

Try a question

Here's what playing it feels like

A real question from this course. Take your best guess.

The Sealed Planet

What is the primary source of external energy that enters Earth's system to keep life running?

Get it right to open this lesson and 35 more in the app.

Course map

Where Life and the Living Universe takes you

Explore how our planet breathes, how animals thrive, and how the laws of life on Earth connect us to the vast mysteries of deep space.

  1. 1

    Earth as a Living System

    • The Spaceship Earth Concept
    • The Basic Ingredients for Life
  2. 2

    The Animal Kingdom

    • How Animals Solve Survival Problems
    • The Language of Animal Behavior
    • The Tree of Life
  3. 3

    The Power of Plants

    • Turning Sunlight into Food
    • The Hidden World of Roots and Seeds
  4. 4

    Nature's Interconnected Web

    • The Flow of Energy
    • Cycles of Renewal
  5. 5

    The Cosmic Perspective

    • The Neighborhood
    • Searching for Other Earths
    • The Future of Life in Space

5 sections · 12 units · 36 levels. Built to play, not to enroll.

How it's taught

You pick the voice

This course
The Professor

Life and the Living Universe is taught in the The Professor style: clear, structured, thorough. Want a different feel? In the app you can spin up the same topic in any of Tomo's teaching styles. Same facts, totally different vibe.

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