Download unit 10 guide

TEACHER MATERIALS
UNIT 10 GUIDE
Table of Contents
Learning Outcomes
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Key Concepts
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Misconceptions and Teaching Challenges
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Lesson and Content Overview
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BIG HISTORY PROJECT / SY 2016-17 / UNIT 10 GUIDE
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TEACHER MATERIALS
Unit 10—The Future
Unit 10 Driving Question: What’s the next threshold?
Learning Outcomes
1. Explain the Big History story and its defining features and patterns.
2. Identify important human and environmental issues that affect the future of our species and the biosphere.
3. Propose a vision of the future based on new understandings of the past.
Key Concepts
In Unit 10, the focus moves from the past and the present to the future. Historians are not accustomed to making
predictions about the future, as their work relies primarily on the analysis of documents and objects that already
exist. But because of the nature of Big History, the course does allow for different types of predictions about the
future. Predictions about trends in the near future are possible in a number of areas: resource availability, carbon
levels in the atmosphere, temperature change, and population growth are just some of the topics that allow for
predictions of future trends based on trends from the past and present. Predicting the remote future, ironically, can
be done with somewhat greater confidence. Scientists are quite confident, for example, about the characteristics of
our Sun, and as a result they can speak confidently about when it will run out of fuel and die. What students have
learned in earlier units of this course will allow them to approach predictions about both the near and distant future.
World History
Big History includes selected World History topics in support of local standards in New York, California,
and other regions around the world. While not a replacement for a world history course, they explore
the intersection of Big History and world history. Either a globe icon or the notation (WH) denotes these
activities, videos, and articles.
Science
The Big History science extension aims to increase the depth of STEM and general science content in
the course. Either a beaker icon or the notation (Sci) denotes these activities, videos, and articles.
Reviewing the Last 13.8 Billion Years
We have seen how, over the past 13.8 billion years, more complex things appeared in the Universe. From the Big
Bang, there emerged a small but rapidly expanding Universe with lots of dark energy and dark matter as well as
a small amount of chemical elements, mainly in the form of hydrogen and helium atoms. Within about 200 million
years, gravity had sculpted the first complex objects, stars, and within dying stars new elements were cooked,
making the Universe more chemically complex, and allowing the formation of objects such as planets. Our Sun
and Earth formed about 4.5 billion years ago. On our planet (and potentially on others, too!) where conditions were
just right, complex chemicals combined to form living organisms. These organisms could reproduce and evolve
as tiny changes were introduced in each generation. This process has been repeated for almost 4 billion years to
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generate the immense variety of species alive today, including our own species, Homo sapiens. We have turned out
to be the only species capable of collective learning, and this has allowed our species to build on past achievements
and develop new ideas, techniques, and technologies. This process has sped up the pace of societal change within
our communities and the ecological impact of our species. Within just 200,000 years, our numbers have multiplied
dramatically and spread into every region of the Earth. In the last few centuries, these processes have accelerated,
and we have created the vast, complex global societies of today. We’ve created increasingly powerful technologies,
increased our ability to control the environment, and, simultaneously, increased our impact on the biosphere.
Predicting the Near Future
What will life be like in the near future, say on the scale of a few decades or centuries from now? Of course,
we cannot see into the future, but we can study those current trends that seem most likely to shape the future.
At present, we can see both dangerous trends (such as global warming and the continued existence of nuclear
weapons) and more positive trends (such as global collaboration in dealing with climate change, slowing in
population growth, and acceleration in our knowledge about the biosphere). Can we imagine a future largely free
of conflict, disease, and degradation, one in which some humans may even begin to migrate to other worlds as our
Paleolithic ancestors migrated to other continents? Or are we in danger of undermining the foundations of today’s
world, creating a more impoverished world of vicious conflict over scarce resources? The answers will depend on
decisions taken by the generations of humans that are alive today at this critical moment in human history.
Predicting the Distant Future
What will life be like in the more remote future, say on the scale of millions or billions of years from now? Curiously,
it is easier to predict the very remote future, the future of the Earth and the Universe, because here change is
slower and there are fewer variables to calculate. The Sun will die in about 4 billion to 5 billion years’ time. At about
the same time the Milky Way galaxy and the Andromeda galaxy will collide, and that event will have a profound
impact on the stars in each galaxy. Evidence from distant galaxies suggests that the speed of the Universe’s
expansion is accelerating, which in turn suggests that galaxies will slowly become more and more isolated until,
eventually, all stars burn out. The Universe will then fill up with dying stars, which will get gobbled up by black holes,
making it simpler and simpler. But this will not happen for billions of billions of years.
Why This Matters
An understanding of the evolution of the Universe is vital for providing context for why the Universe still exists
today. It also provides the knowledge and evidence to help us make informed predictions about our future, the
future of the Earth, and the Universe as a whole. It is always helpful to be prepared, and you cannot be ready for
the unknown. While our historical knowledge cannot guarantee that we can accurately predict the future, we have
a better chance of doing so using our scientific and historical understandings.
Misconceptions and Teaching Challenges
All Predictions are the Same
Students may hold the view that all types of predictions are the same. It is important to emphasize with students
that there is a difference between random prediction and scientific prediction. The former is based on gut instinct
or feelings, whereas the latter is based on observation, evidence, and probabilities. Students should be trying
to model scientific prediction. When they make scientific predictions in this unit, they will be using evidence and
understandings from previous units. They will be grounding their predictions in concrete evidence as opposed to
instinct.
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Cumulative Content
This unit provides some greater content challenges than usual since the activities require them to think through
problems that draw on knowledge from every unit in the course. A goal of Unit 10 is to ask students to think
about issues that face humans and the biosphere in the near and remote futures. To grapple with such questions,
students will need to draw on information from all units of the course. Students will have varying degrees of
recollection of these units. This could both slow down their work, as they go back and review previous work, or
it could frustrate them, as they try hard to remember where they might find information to help them address a
specific question.
Little Big History
Finishing the Little Big History projects will require hard work and focus. Students have worked hard during the
year. Although they’ve done important preliminary LBH project work in previous units, students will now be trying
to learn new content at the same time that they’re working intensively to finish their LBH projects. You may need to
provide extra encouragement to get them through it, despite your own fatigue!
Lesson and Content Overview
Lesson name
Lesson description
10.0—Looking Back
Big History is an unfinished
• Watch: The History of
story. But before we think about
Everything – TED
where we go from here, let’s
take a quick look at where our
13.8-billion-year adventure has
taken us.
• Opening: Timeline Review
We’ve created powerful
technologies, tried to control
the environment, and increased
our impact on the biosphere.
Consider issues facing humans
and the biosphere in the near
and remote futures.
• Watch: Crash Course World
History: Globalization II –
Good or Bad?
• Opening: Natural Disasters
The study of Big History
inevitably leads to the future. So
what’s next? Join some of the
world’s great thinkers to try to
predict the next threshold.
• Watch: A Big History of
Everything – H2
• Opening: My Timeline Redux
• Read: “Complexity and the
Future”
• Closing: The Future of Our
Planet
10.1—The Biosphere
10.2—Looking Forward
Content
• Watch: The Atmosphere and
Climate
• Watch: Jacqueline Howard
Presents: A Day on Mars
• Watch: Bill Gates: Visions of
the Future
Activity
• Vocab Activity: Part 1
• Activity: DQ Notebook
• Activity: Scale
• Closing: What Do You Know?
What Do You Ask?
• Vocab Activity: Part 2
• Activity: Gapminder Card
Sort
• Closing: Visions of the Future
• Activity: DQ Notebook
• Watch: The Deep Future –
Crash Course
• Read: “Sylvester James
Gates, Jr.: At the Forefront
of Science”
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TEACHER MATERIALS
Lesson name
Lesson description
Content
Activity
10.3—Are We Alone? (Sci)
Humans have long questioned
the idea that we may not be
alone in the Universe. Earth is
just one planet in a Universe
with trillions of planets. While
this may make us seem rather
insignificant, Big History
has shown that we are an
important part of the story of
the Universe.
• Watch: The Fermi Paradox
– Where Are All the Aliens?
(Sci)
• Opening: Alien Life – What
Might It Look Like? (Sci)
Investigation: Are humans
still evolving?
In this unit’s Investigation,
students weigh conflicting
opinions by two scientists to
consider if humans are still
evolving.
• Human evolution
• Claim testing worksheets
• Geneticists and
paleoanthropologists weigh
in
• Speech or debate script
Additional content
Additional content items,
including image galleries,
can be used to augment
lessons or customize
your own unit.
• Pocket Time Machine - H2
(video)
• Unit 10 - PBL
• Watch: Neil deGrasse Tyson –
Where Are the Aliens? (Sci)
• Read: “Are We Alone? Now Is
the Time to Find Out” (Sci)
• Activity: Anyone Out There?
(The Drake Equation) (Sci)
• Closing: First Contact (Sci)
• Read: “40 Years Ago, Earth
Beamed Its First Postcard to
the Stars” (Sci)
• “Claim Testers Episode 4:
Fueling the Future” (reading)
• Investigation 10
• Threshold 9: The Future
(video)
• Henry Louis Gates, Jr: Visions
of the Future (video)
• Sanjayan: Visions of the
Future (video)
• “Part 2 Summary” (reading)
• Learning tips
• Random facts
• Related galleries, images,
websites, and videos
• Web links
Assessments
Actions
This unit includes a required
Unit 10: Final Test along with
lesson and glossary quizzes.
Also included is an Investigation
writing assessment.
• Lesson Quizzes
• Glossary Challenge
• Unit Test
• Investigation Writing
The Unit Log is required for
every unit and Unit 10 also
includes a survey which
students and teachers are
encouraged to participate in.
• Unit Log
BIG HISTORY PROJECT / SY 2016-17 / UNIT 10 GUIDE
• Survey
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