What the course covers
The course is about three things:
- Names. What a strain name is, where indica and sativa came from, and how family trees, crosses and landraces work.
- Chemistry. What cannabinoids and terpenes are, how the plant makes them, why cannabis smells the way it does, and how chemists group plants by what they contain.
- Lab data. How to read a label and a certificate of analysis, why the same strain tests differently from batch to batch and lab to lab, and how to compare two strains fairly.
What it doesn't cover
This is a course about plants, molecules and measurements. It has nothing on how to use cannabis or how much, nothing on cultivation, and no medical content, and it never says what a strain, cannabinoid or terpene will do to you. Research on effects is outside the scope of these lessons. It names no shops and quotes no costs. Cannabis laws differ by country and state, and the course doesn’t comment on them.
How the lessons connect to the data
Every strain page on this site is built from open lab results, and the course explains how to read them:
- Graded figures. Each lab figure on a strain page carries an evidence grade from A to D and the number of samples behind it. A grade describes how much evidence there is, not how good the strain is. Lessons 1, 10 and 11 show what the grades mean and what they don’t.
- Graded family trees. Each parent link carries a lineage grade from L1 (stated by the breeder) to L4 (disputed or unknown). Lesson 3 explains them.
- Labels as claims. The indica, sativa or hybrid type on a strain page is shown as “sold as”, because it is the seller’s label. Lesson 2 explains why.
- Live, not typed. No figure from our data is typed into a lesson. Charts, the calculator and examples are live embeds that read the current release, so the lessons stay in step with the strain pages.
The lessons also give context to the tools: the terpene chart, the cannabinoid chart, the total THC calculator, compare and the strain chemistry map. Words used in the course are defined in the glossary, and the full grading rules are on the sources and grading page.
cs-embed name=learn-parts
Three part cards in a row (stacked on phones), each in its part's tint, listing its lessons with read times from cs_read_time:
Part 1 "The plant and its names" (lessons 1-3), Part 2 "The chemistry" (lessons 4-8), Part 3 "Reading lab data" (lessons 9-12).
Read times and titles come from the lesson pages' fields, never typed here.
How this course is written
- Every outside fact is checked at its source. Each lesson lists its sources with the date we read them. We prefer peer-reviewed papers, regulators, standards bodies and public chemistry databases.
- Reviewed before it’s published. Every lesson, including the cannabinoid lessons (4 and 5), is reviewed by Gordon Hill, the site’s editor. His name and the date of the review appear on each lesson.
- Chemistry, not promises. Lessons describe what was measured and how. Where a question is still open in the research, the lesson says so.
- Original words and pictures. Diagrams and illustrations are our own.
Each lesson ends with three quick questions to check what you’ve read, and links to the previous and next lessons.