ing the phone on speaker so you can keep your hands free. If the person is unresponsive and not breathing normally, start CPR and ask someone to bring a defibrillator (AED) if there is one nearby. This course builds awareness only; a certified hands-on class is what truly prepares you." } ] }, { "id": "social", "name": "Social Sciences, Law & Economics", "host": "mony", "blurb": "How people, markets and institutions behave: economics, law, psychology, sociology and government.", "courses": [ { "id": "econ101", "title": "Principles of Economics", "host": "mony", "desc": "Scarcity, choice, supply and demand, markets, money and the economy as a whole. Educational, not financial advice.", "lessons": ["Scarcity and opportunity cost", "Supply and demand", "Markets and prices", "Market failures", "Money, inflation and growth"], "intro": "Economics studies how people and societies make choices when resources are scarce: there is never enough time, money, land or labour to do everything we want. Because every choice means giving something up, economists focus on opportunity cost, the value of the best alternative you did not choose; the true cost of an evening studying might be the shift you could have worked instead. Economists also assume people respond to incentives, so changes in prices, rules or rewards change behaviour. Microeconomics looks at individual households, firms and markets, while macroeconomics studies the whole economy, including growth, unemployment and inflation. This course is general education, never personal financial advice." }, { "id": "law101", "title": "Introduction to Law", "host": "epistle", "desc": "What law is, where it comes from, how courts work, and core areas such as contracts, torts and rights. General information, not legal advice.", "lessons": ["What is law?", "Sources of law: constitutions, statutes and cases", "Courts and procedure", "Contracts", "Torts and responsibility", "Rights and freedoms"], "intro": "Law is a system of rules created and enforced by public institutions to govern behaviour, settle disputes and protect rights. Legal systems differ around the world. Common law systems, used in places such as the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia, give great weight to earlier court decisions, called precedents; civil law systems, used across most of Europe and Latin America, rely mainly on comprehensive written codes. Most systems distinguish criminal law, where the state prosecutes offences, from civil law, where private parties resolve disputes such as broken contracts. This course explains general principles only; for a real legal problem, consult a qualified lawyer in your own jurisdiction." }, { "id": "psych101", "title": "Introduction to Psychology", "host": "fren", "desc": "The science of mind and behaviour: research methods, perception, memory, learning, motivation and social behaviour.", "lessons": ["Psychology as a science", "Brain and behaviour", "Perception and attention", "Learning and memory", "Social influence"], "intro": "Psychology is the scientific study of the mind and behaviour. What separates it from common-sense opinion is its method: psychologists form testable hypotheses and check them with careful observation and experiments. In a true experiment, researchers randomly assign participants to conditions and change one variable, the independent variable, to see its effect on another, the dependent variable, while keeping everything else the same. Correlational studies, by contrast, measure how two things vary together but cannot by themselves show that one causes the other. Because results can fail to replicate, good psychology also values large samples, preregistration and repeated studies. Keep asking: how do we know?" }, { "id": "gov101", "title": "Government and Civics", "host": "chief", "desc": "How societies govern themselves: democracy, constitutions, separation of powers, elections and civic participation.", "lessons": ["Why government?", "Forms of government", "Constitutions and the separation of powers", "Elections and representation", "Citizenship and participation"], "intro": "Governments exist to make and enforce collective decisions: keeping order, protecting rights, providing public goods such as roads and defence, and settling conflicts. Political thinkers have long asked where a government gets its authority; social contract theorists such as Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau argued that legitimate power rests in some way on the consent of the governed. Forms of government differ in who holds power: one person in an autocracy or absolute monarchy, a small group in an oligarchy, and the people in a democracy, either directly or through elected representatives. Most modern democracies also limit power with a constituti