OASIS Courses
Join us for an engaging one-day course that explores the fascinating story of how our oceans power the world. We’ll begin with a look back at the history of ocean energy development, then examine today’s shift toward renewable technologies like offshore wind and wave energy. The course will also highlight the growing importance of critical minerals and rare earth elements found in the ocean—resources essential to everything from smartphones to clean energy. Along the way, we’ll consider the roles of government, industry, and everyday citizens in shaping energy decisions. Designed to spark curiosity and conversation, this course connects global issues to your own life and community, making complex topics both accessible and relevant.
Artificial Intelligence is rapidly changing how we live, communicate, work, and even how we determine what information to trust. In this engaging and practical session, learn what AI actually is, how it is already influencing everyday life, and why understanding it is becoming essential for everyone, not just people working in technology.
Designed specifically for lifelong learners, this session will explore how AI tools can simplify everyday tasks, including writing, researching topics, planning travel, organizing information, and learning new skills. Participants will also learn how artificial intelligence can create highly realistic images, voices, and messages, and how to recognize when AI may be misleading or being used to manipulate information.
Through clear demonstrations and real-world examples, Paul will show both the opportunities and the risks of this rapidly evolving technology. Attendees will leave with practical tips on how to safely use AI tools, how to spot AI-generated scams or misinformation, and how to stay informed and confident in a world where technology is advancing quickly.
This presentation is designed to be interactive, approachable, and thought-provoking, giving participants the knowledge they need to better understand the age of AI and how it may affect their daily lives.
Few realize that the world’s major religions – Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, and Christianity – arrived in China as early as the Han Dynasty (206 B.C.E.–220 C.E.). This session will examine how these religions went on to develop uniquely Chinese beliefs and practices over millennia, their impacts on Chinese civilization, and the current status of their followers in Mainland China under the Chinese Communist Party.
World War I produced numerous now very celebrated artists – poets, painters, and composers – whose work mainly centered on the futility and horror of war. Yet some of them were military heroes while decrying their reasons for being so. The artists of the Second World War are far less well known, and, in the face of what many considered a Good War, less morally affronted by the realities of war. Everybody loves Vaughan Williams, whose music illuminated both World Wars - but what about the German composers and writers, now carefully forgotten, while their Soviet counterparts are icons? By the time of Vietnam, the “serious” artists mostly abandoned the field to protest singers and cartoonists.
Why is this? How does art – in all its forms – respond to cataclysm, and why does it seem to have stopped trying to? Everything has changed – both war and the arts – and we need to understand this.