Have you ever wondered why humans walk on two legs rather than four? We have developed a free, massive open online course (MOOC) that explores how science investigates this unusual form of locomotion. We start our investigation by looking at the mechanics of upright walking in humans and comparing that to bipedal locomotion in large birds, bears, and apes.
We journey back millions of years into the human fossil record in an effort to understand how and why upright walking evolved. Around our first birthday, each of us learned how to walk, but how does this happen? With bipedalism came costly trade-offs as well– in this course, we examine these aches and pains as byproducts of our evolutionary history.
This course takes an intentionally interdisciplinary approach to studying how and why humans move bipedally, using anthropology, biomechanics, anatomy, evolution and paleontology to explore something deeply human: upright walking.
Register for free and start course HERE.
Want to learn more about the making of a MOOC? Watch this video.
The MOOC was developed in partnership with the Smithsonian. Below is a short video showing how Dr. Briana Pobiner (Smithsonian) and I used an online forum (shindig) to answer questions about human evolution.