BH-Unit-1-Guide

5/19/2018 BH-Unit-1-Guide

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BIG HISTORY PROJECT / UNIT 1 GUIDE 1

UNIT 1 GUIDE

Table of Contents

Learning Outcomes 2

Key Concepts 2

Misconceptions and Teaching Challenges 3

Vocabulary 4

Lesson and Content Overview 5


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Unit 1What Is Big History?Unit 1 Driving Question: Why do we look at things from far away and close up?

Learning Outcomes

1. Define thresholds of increasing complexity, origin stories, and scale.

2. Understand that Big History is a modern, science-based origin story that draws on many different types ofknowledge.

3. Understand how you fit into the Big History narrative, using the concept of thresholds to frame your past,present, and future and the history of the Universe.

4. Understand what disciplines are and consider the viewpoints of many different scholars about the sametopic.

Key Concepts

Big History is a course that tells the story of the Universe from the Big Bang to the present, which means you andyour students are going to be looking at billionsof years of history. Because telling the story of the Universe coversso much time and so many topics, it will probably require a different approach than other courses youve taught.

Scale

Seeing yourselves as part of the history of everything can help you and your students understand your place in the

Universe. Big History brings together a broad range of historical accounts and many different temporal and spatialscales. In your own life, you can ask yourself, What is my first memory? Or you can ask about your family historyor the history of your country. But you can also ask about the history of humanity, of life on Earth, or of the SolarSystem. In the same way, you can ask about the history of the entire Universe, and you can then try to see how allthese stories fit together.

Origin Stories

Every society has its own history and origin stories. Origin stories focus on the most important questions of ourexistence; they tell us how all the components of our world were created, and by doing so they demonstrate howeach of us is linked to everything else. Big History weaves evidence and insights from many scientific and historicaldisciplines into accessible origin stories that account for everything within the Universe. Big History tells the origin

stories as told by modern science.

Ways of Knowing and Understanding

The Big History course relies on information from people other than just historians, which is not typical for a historycourse. Your students will consider what scholars from many disciplines have to say about the past, includingscholars in physics, astronomy, chemistry, biology, anthropology, and of course, history. This type of approach, inwhich you and your students consider the viewpoints of many different scholars about the same topic, is called an


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interdisciplinaryapproach. Your students will learn that when they use the perspectives of many different disciplinesto help them answer complex questions, theyll inevitably get a fascinating and complex answer.

Thresholds of Increasing ComplexityObviously, you cant cover everythingthats happened in the last 13.8 billion years. In Big History, we use guidingcriteria that determine what gets included in the course and what gets left out. These criteria are defined as theeight thresholds of increasing complexity. These are the ideas critical to the story of Big History and they guidedecisions about the resources that have been chosen for you to use in teaching the course. You and your studentswill spend time learning about the ingredients and Goldilocks Conditions necessary to create each of the eightthresholds.

Misconceptions and Teaching Challenges

Scale

Another challenging aspect for students is they may feel that their belief systems are in opposition to both the BigHistory narrative and the origin stories that they encounter in this unit. Its helpful to point out that there are oftenmany different explanations for the same phenomena, and instead of trying to reconcile different stories, it can bemore useful to compare the similarities and differences in the stories. This will open their eyes to other narrativesand alternative explanations for history, and set the stage for open-mindedness throughout the course.

Reconciling Faith and Science

Another challenging aspect for students is they may feel that their belief systems are in opposition to both the BigHistory narrative and the origin stories that they encounter in this unit. Its helpful to point out that there are oftenmany different explanations for the same phenomena, and instead of trying to reconcile different stories, it can be

more useful to compare the similarities and differences in the stories. This will open their eyes to other narrativesand alternative explanations for history, and set the stage for open-mindedness throughout the course.

Thresholds of Increasing Complexity

Unit 1 touches on complexity and thresholds, two critical concepts of the Big History course. Although these topicsare important for students to understand, theyre less concrete than other topics in the course, which may makethem more challenging for some students to understand. Reassure students that theyll return to these ideas ineach unit when a new threshold is introduced and over time theyll feel more comfortable with these concepts.

Reading, Writing, and Discussion

The Big History course is great for addressing English and Language Arts standards because it has a frameworkfor reading, writing, and holding successful class discussions. The course provides leveled readings for all students.There are anywhere from two to four versions of each article so students at different reading levels can all engagewith the material. The Big History guides to reading, writing, and discussion will help you and your studentsnavigate and become familiar with the practices that will help them succeed in the course. It may seem like a bit ofa grind at first, but if you use these guides and employ the methods they suggest, it will really pay off in the future.A few units into the course, the practices will become second nature for everyone. Instead of having to grapplewith how to get through a reading, time will be spent on grappling with Big Historys big ideas.


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Understanding the Website

A common issue for Big History teachers is that their students didnt learn how to use the website early on in thecourse, and this affected their experience throughout the school year. It may seem silly and not terribly academic,but its worth your and your students time to complete the Big History Website Scavenger Hunt activity. This will

save you a lot of headaches down the road.

Vocabulary

astrophysics The study of the properties and interactions of planets, stars, galaxies, and other astronomicalobjects.

Big Bang A theory, first articulated in the 1920s, proposing that the Universe started out extremely hot anddense and gradually cooled off as it expanded.

Big History A unified account of the entire history of the Universe that uses evidence and ideas from manydisciplines to create a broad context for understanding humanity; a modern scientific origin story.

complexity A quality of an object or system that has diverse componentsprecisely arranged in connectionwith one another (so that new propertiesemerge which did not exist in the components alone).

cosmology The study of the Universe on its largest scales, including its origin.

emergent properties Properties of a complex system that are not present within its parts but that emergeonly when those parts are combined.

entropy (the law of) The natural tendency of all things to move from order to disorder. (Note: Althoughoften called the law of entropy, it is more accurate to refer to it as the second law of thermodynamics.)

Goldilocks Conditions Specific set of conditions necessary to enable greater complexity. The reference is

to the fairy tale Goldilocks and the Three Bears, in which Goldilocks looks for the porridge, chair, and bed thatare just right.

history The study of past events.

ingredients Components that are put together to form something new and more complex.

interdisciplinary approach An approach to a subject that uses the viewpoints of many differentkinds of scholars about the same topic. For instance, Big History relies on information from cosmologists,astrophysicists, geologists, chemists, paleontologists, biologists, anthropologists, and historians, as well asexperts in other disciplines, to learn about the past.

origin story A narrative about the beginning of the Universe and humanity.

religion A set of beliefs and practices that concern humanitys relationship with the spiritual, thesupernatural, and reality.

scale Degrees of magnification, or perspective, used to measure time, space, and size.

science An approach to discovering knowledge about the natural world that relies on testing ideas throughobservation or experiment.

scientific notation A method of expressing very large and very small numbers to avoid using the manyzeros that would be required otherwise.


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thresholds of increasing complexity Moments in the history of the Universe when specific ingredientsunder the right Goldilocks Conditions come together to create something new and more complex.

Universe All the matter and energy in existence, as well as the space that contains it.

Lesson and Content Overview

Lesson name Lesson description Content Activity

1.0Welcome to Big History Big History starts with the bigpicture. Examining Big Historybig ideas from the beginninghelps set the stage for the restof the course.

Watch: What Is Big History?

Watch: The Big Bang CrashCourse

Watch: A Big History ofEverything H2

Activity: Visions of the Future

Activity: Big History WebsiteScavenger Hunt

1.1Scale Big History is so big that weneed to use a variety of scalesto understand different topicsin the course. Looking at thingstemporal and spatial scaleshelps us do this.

Activity: Powers of 10 Activity: DQ Notebook

Vocab Activity: Memorization

Activity: Big History on aFootball Field

1.2Origin Stories People have always told originstories stories about how theUniverse and humans cameto be. Big History is a modern,scientific origin story.

Watch: Big Questions H2

Read: Cosmology and Faith

Opening: BANG! TheUniverse Verse Book 1

Activity: Origin StoriesIntroduction

Activity: Origin Stories from aVariety of Cultures

Closing: DQ Notebook

1.3What Are Disciplines? Big History enlists scholarsfrom many disciplines includingphysics, astronomy, chemistry,biology, anthropology, andhistory to help answer complexquestions.

Watch: Are We Alone? H2

Watch: Ways of Knowing Introduction to Cosmology

Watch: Ways of Knowing Introduction to Astrophysics

Opening: Who Knows What?

Vocab Activity:Comprehension

Activity: Easter IslandMystery

Closing: Exit Ticket WhatDo You Know, What Do YouAsk?

1.4My Big History Students place themselves inthe Big History narrative byexploring the scale of their ownlives, and the core concepts

of Goldilocks Conditions andthresholds of increasingcomplexity are introduced.

Watch: A Big History ofEverything H2

Read: Complexity andThresholds

Opening: My Timeline

Activity: ThresholdConcentration

Activity: History of Me Closing: Investigation 1

Investigation: Why do we look

at things from far away and

close up?

The first investigation in thecourse is focused on scaleand why it is important to lookat things from different spatialand temporal perspectives.

David Christian and FernandBraudel on historical scales

Different geographic andtime scales

Worksheets


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Lesson name Lesson description Content Activity

Additional content Additional content items,including image galleries,can be used to augment

lessons or customizeyour own unit.

Introduction to Thresholds ofIncreasing Complexity (video)

The Big History (video)

A Student of Big History(video)

Learning tips

Random facts

Related galleries, images,websites, and videos

Web links

Assessments Unit 1 includes lesson andglossary quizzes.

Lesson Quizzes Glossary Challenge

Actions The Unit Log is required for

every unit. Unit 1 includes asurvey, which students andteachers are encouraged totake.

Unit Log

Survey


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Documents

BH-Unit-1-Guide