During the course, you will go on a journey from the big bang until today. You will also engage in a project exploring how processes such as the origin of the universe, the lives of stars and planets, the emergence and evolution of life—including our own species—and the development of agriculture, states, and globalisation have shaped Amsterdam’s cityscape, biodiversity, and social structure.

The results of that exploration will be bundled in the form of a digital tour that will be published as part of the Amsterdam750 Stories Project.

Join the course to foster your creativity, interdisciplinary skills, and long-term thinking—and discover how you and the city around you are part of a bigger story!

Coordinator

Dr. Esther Quaedackers

Timetable

You can find the timetable on Datanose.

Entry requirements

Open to second-year and third-year UvA Bachelor's students and other interested parties, such as contract students or students from other Dutch higher education institutions. Master's students can only participate if there are still spots available.

Registration

UvA Bachelor's students can register from 10 to 16 June 2025 in the GLASS registration rounds. Master’s students can send a short motivation to keuzeonderwijs-iis@uva.nl.

‘Bijvak’ students and contract students can register from 10 June 2025 until two weeks prior to the start of the course, by completing the online registration form.

If you have any trouble while registering, please contact us at keuzeonderwijs-iis@uva.nl.

Please note: as a contract student you can choose to participate either including or excluding assessment. If you choose the latter, you only have access to the seven lectures of the course. If you also wish to attend the seminars, please choose 'including assessment'.

Costs

Prices can be found on the IIS website.

SDGs in education

The IIS strives to reflect current societal issues and challenges in our elective courses, honours modules and degree programmes and attempts to integrate the following Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in this course. For more information about these goals, please visit the SDGs website.