Which of these free online science courses come with a certificate
None of the 14 courses on this page gives a free certificate. Some sell one as an optional extra; the lecture archives award nothing at all.
Paid certificate on edX and Coursera
Harvard and Cornell list their edX courses as free to audit, which opens the videos and readings while graded work and the certificate are paid. Science & Cooking sells a verified certificate at $249, The Health Effects of Climate Change at $219, and Cornell's A Hands-on Introduction to Engineering Simulations at $199. On Coursera, the University of Alberta's Mountains 101 is free in full with a shareable certificate offered for a fee the page does not state.
No certificate: lecture archives and Princeton
MIT OpenCourseWare's Classical Mechanics needs no account and offers no certificate. Oxford's Quantum Mechanics lectures have no enrolment or certificate. Open Yale Courses offers no credit or certificate, which covers Frontiers and Controversies in Astrophysics and Frontiers of Biomedical Engineering.
Stanford Engineering Everywhere publishes The Fourier Transform and its Applications, Introduction to Linear Dynamical Systems and Introduction to Robotics without registration, credit or certificate. On Coursera, Princeton's Imagining Other Earths and Alberta's Dino 101 and Bugs 101 state that all features are free and that no certificates, credentials or reports are awarded.
Physics courses online free: MIT mechanics and Oxford quantum mechanics
The MIT physics course on this page is 8.01SC, Classical Mechanics, in the OpenCourseWare Scholar format built for independent learners. It runs week by week from vectors and kinematics through Newton's laws, momentum and energy, each lesson a set of short videos with worked examples and a problem set, backed by an online textbook; MIT lists no prerequisites but treats single variable calculus as a corequisite. James Binney's Quantum Mechanics is the next level up: an Oxford lecture course built from probability amplitudes through Dirac notation, the Schrödinger equation, tunnelling, entanglement and Bell's inequality, to the hydrogen atom, with university-level mathematics throughout.
Free astronomy courses online from Yale and Princeton
Charles Bailyn's Frontiers and Controversies in Astrophysics, ASTR 160, takes three areas in turn: the detection of extra-solar planets by transits, microlensing and direct imaging; relativity, pulsars and black holes; and Hubble's law, the Big Bang, dark matter and dark energy. Its problem sets mix calculation with essay questions, so expect some quantitative work. David Spergel's Imagining Other Earths is the gentler route, estimated at three weeks of short modules from the definition of life, through the solar system and exoplanet searches, to habitable zones and the Fermi paradox, with no prerequisites.
Biology, earth science and chemistry for beginners
The University of Alberta courses are the easiest entry points. Dino 101 covers dinosaur anatomy, fossilisation, feeding and reproduction, then evolution, geologic time and extinction, filmed in museums, labs and at dig sites, over one week at 10 hours a week. Bugs 101 runs five weeks on insect adaptations, pollination, disease and pest management. Mountains 101 spans geology, climate, altitude physiology, glaciers and alpine wildlife over two weeks.
Two Harvard courses apply science to everyday concerns. Science & Cooking pairs chefs with Harvard scientists to explain the molecules, pH, heat and diffusion behind a dish each week, with experiments you run in your own kitchen at 2 to 3 hours a week. The Health Effects of Climate Change traces how rising greenhouse gases reach public health through air quality, nutrition, infectious disease and migration, over seven weeks at 3 to 5 hours a week; both are rated introductory.
Free engineering courses online: simulation, biomedical and electrical
Cornell's A Hands-on Introduction to Engineering Simulations is the only course here with practical software work: fluid dynamics in Ansys Fluent and structural mechanics in Ansys Mechanical, the finite-element and fluid-dynamics ideas underneath, and verification against hand calculations. It is rated intermediate, runs six weeks at 4 to 6 hours a week, and asks for high-school physics, calculus and basic matrix algebra. Mark Saltzman's Frontiers of Biomedical Engineering, BENG 100, was written for science and non-science majors alike and moves through genetic engineering, immunology, biomechanics, imaging and artificial organs, with case studies of how drugs and devices reach FDA approval.
The Stanford Engineering Everywhere courses are electrical engineering and robotics with the mathematics as the subject. Brad Osgood's The Fourier Transform and its Applications covers Fourier series, convolution, sampling, filters and the FFT, with problem sets and exams with solutions. Stephen Boyd's Introduction to Linear Dynamical Systems is applied linear algebra for circuits, signals and control and asks for differential equations first. Oussama Khatib's Introduction to Robotics surveys kinematics, dynamics, control and motion planning; matrix algebra is the only stated prerequisite.
Do online science courses count for credit, and is there a lab
No course on this page awards academic credit, and none is an accredited online science course in the sense a college or medical school would recognise; the edX and Coursera certificates record completion only. There is no laboratory component; the nearest things are the kitchen experiments in Science & Cooking, the simulation software in the Cornell course, and the problem sets in the MIT and Stanford archives, some with solutions. If credit is the goal, use these to prepare for a course elsewhere.
Where to go next
The physics and engineering courses lean on free online mathematics courses, where the calculus and linear algebra prerequisites are listed. Science & Cooking and the climate course also appear under free online nutrition courses, and the beginner courses with no deadlines are listed on free online courses for seniors. The MIT and Yale provider pages explain how their open archives work.