In this course students will investigate research and scientific discoveries with broad interdisciplinary implications and ways in which the properties of quantum mechanics relate across STEM disciplines. Each major topic will start with an excursion and disciplinary focus: Q-eating Kew Gardens and biodiversity, Q-feeling Alan Turing Institute and artificial intelligence, and Q-being Natural History Museum and geology. Students will learn how quantum physics, which analyses the behaviour of everything on an extremely tiny scale – protons, electrons, quarks or photons – is closely related to our life. For example, through excursions and classrooms activities we will explore how biology is directly influenced by quantum physics and how important a pair of electrons may be for a bird or how crucial a few protons could be for evolution. With the broad scientific topics of study, the course is open to students across all STEM majors build to their interdisciplinary scientific skills.

Students will read and discuss scientific primary literature, design and perform experiments to understand scientific perspectives and reflect on the process of discovery, the implications of research, and avenues for future study. We will examine cross-cutting concepts such as cause and effect, scale, proportion, quantity, systems and system models, structure and function or stability and change. Students will engage in independent writing projects and field trips will connect classroom discussions to place-based understanding of the science. 

More specifically, this adventure will be triggered by a question: "What is life?" Different historical theories will be proposed an analyzed, working particularly on Erwin Schrödinger's theory that suggest quantum physics is a key element to answer such a complex question.