Teaching sequence

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

20 minutes – Tune in: Activating prior knowledge
20 minutes – Find out: How to be a Big Historian and Claim Tester
15 minutes – Take action: Preparing our Big History Passports
5 minutes – Reflection

Presentation Slides

We strongly encourage you to use the Presentation Slides to guide you and students through this lesson.

Tune in: Activating prior knowledge

Step 1.

Start by establishing students' prior knowledge.

Ask students:

What do you already know about the universe? For example, do students know how the planets were formed? Do they know how humans came to be?

Step 2.

Give each student a copy of the Big History Threshold Reflection Pre-Assessment Page.

Students write down everything they already know about the universe in the section provided.

Step 3.

Watch:

Big History Project: A Story for Everyone (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPe6zjeccjs)

Step 4.

Explain that Big History, the unit of learning you are about to embark upon as a class, is our story of our past, present, and future in the history of the Universe.

Discuss:

What did you find most interesting about the video? What are you most excited to learn about?
What are you still wondering about the universe? What questions do you want answered? For example, students might be wondering about the dinosaurs, the Sun, the Big Bang, or our ancestors.

Step 5.

Students write down their wonderings on the Pre-Assessment sheet in the space provided.

You might also create a Prior Knowledge and Wonderings mind map on the whiteboard or a piece of paper. This will help students share their understandings, and reflect on their growth later in the unit.

Find out: How to be a Big Historian and Claim Tester

Step 1.

Explain to students that people make claims all the time. Teachers make claims; when you tell each other stories you make claims; television commercials make claims about products; doctors make claims about medicine; the list goes on and on.

Much of what people share and advertise are claims; however, we often don’t explain or justify our claims (even teachers!).

Claim testing will play an important role in each unit of this course. Students are welcome to make a claim but must always be able to back it up with evidence from an expert, or leave it as an intuition!

So, let's test our skills.

Step 2.

Get students to stand up.

Display each of the three claims on the board in turn.

If students agree with the claim, they should move to the left of the classroom. If students disagree, they should move to the right.

Step 3.

Once students have made their choices on a claim, ask one or more students from each side to justify the position that they took.

The claims and possible answers are:

If your doctor tells you that you have a fever, you should believe it’s true. You are probably right to believe your doctor. They are an expert in these things and have been studying fevers for years. However, they could still be wrong in their analysis. Also, science is changing all the time.
If you read something on the Internet, you should always believe it’s true. Anyone can make a claim on the internet. Are we sure they are a reliable and trustworthy source, such as the doctor? Also, science is changing all the time, so you could come across old information that is now wrong.
If your brother or sister is playing with your special toy and they tell you that they thought you wouldn’t mind, you should believe them. We probably know what we did and didn't say, as this is information we have encountered ourselves. So no, we shouldn't believe our brother or sister.
If your teacher tells you the Earth is 4.5 billion years old, you should believe it’s true. This one will be the most divisive! Our teacher is probably trustworthy... but we should still do some investigation ourselves.

Step 4.

Claim testing will play an important role in each unit of this course. Stress that evidence from an authority is an essential part of Big History learning. As you develop your claim-testing skills, remember to apply that knowledge to your writing. This will help you support your own claims in both writing and speaking.

Step 5.

Read the Big History Claim Testers Comic.

As you go, discuss:

What claim tester does Big Sci represent and how do we know? Big Sci represents authority, and he has many ribbons and badges to support his credibility.
What claim tester does Evy represent and what does she carry for support? Evy represents evidence, and she carries a briefcase full of images and measurements of the cosmos.
What claim tester does Andor represent? Logic.
What claim tester does Vera represent? Intuition.
Which claim tester did Brianna use to test Big Sci’s claim that there was no such thing as space travel? Intuition.

After reading the comic, reinforce to students that claim testing will play an important role in each unit of this course. You’ll want to learn the four claim testers and start using them as soon as you can.

Step 6.

Explain to students that disciplines are areas of study that help to answer many different questions about ourselves, our planet, and the universe. No one discipline can know all there is to know about absolutely everything! It would be impossible to think of all the questions to ask, let alone have all the answers!

Work through the scientific disciplines below. Do students know what they do and study? Can they provide a definition of their role?

Alternatively, you could play a game of "Who Am I?". Read out a discipline description, and see if students can match it to the discipline name.

Astronomer - a scientist who studies the universe and everything in it, including planets, stars, galaxies, comets, and black holes
Astrophysicist - a scientist who studies how the universe started and how it is changing with time
Historian - a scientist who writes about, or is an expert on, past events
Geologist - a scientist who studies the history of the Earth and its life especially as recorded in rocks
Biologist - a scientist who studies living organisms

Step 7.

Finally, what do students think a Cosmologist might do?

Step 8.

Watch:

Introduction to Cosmology | Unit 2: Big History Project | OER Project (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrhD77JhtOA?start=0&end=240)

Step 9.

Do students have a better understanding of what a Cosmologist does? One definition might be:

Cosmologist - a scientist who studies the universe, from the Big Bang to today and into the future.

Take action: Preparing for out Big History adventure

Step 1.

Students' Big History Passports will be a place where they can store all of the knowledge they accumulate over the course of their Big History Journey.

It will store their work throughout each lesson, as well as reflection pages on each of the thresholds they cross.

Give students some time to colour in the front page of their Big History Passport.

Step 2.

Get students to fill out their details for their Big History Passport, including their name, age, and planet of origin.

Step 3.

The passport stamp pages are to keep track of students' progress. For now, students should just keep them safe in their Big History Passport. However, whenever your class passes a threshold in future lessons, make sure to come back and colour in the stamp, just like on a real passport.

Step 4.

Finally, students design a spaceship that can take them on a journey through space and time. Students can check out NASA space module images for ideas, before drawing a diagram of their ship. Make sure students give their ship a name. They might also like to label the features.

Reflection

Encourage students to share with the whole class one thing they are excited to learn on their Big History Journey.

Big History - How to be a Big Historian

Go to

Summary

Lesson guides and printables

In this lesson