Big Bang
Teacher Resources
Lesson Guide
This lesson includes skills activities for causation and geography as well as videos and graphic biographies. Find teacher instructions, pacing, and sample answers in this guide.
Threshold Taglines
Students dig into Big History’s first threshold of increasing complexity in this lesson. Help jog their memory by showing them the graphic on page 2 of this Unit 1 activity.
Driving Question: How did the Universe begin?
In an instant, the Universe went from nothing to producing the building blocks for everything we know. The Big Bang helps explain how these massive changes took place.
Learning Objectives:
- Explain the Big Bang theory and the evidence that supports it.
- Investigate the historical thinking skill of causation.
- Use scale switching to make sense of the history of the Universe, Earth, and humanity.
Vocab Terms:
- Big Bang
- causation
- complexity
- element
- energy
- matter
We know a lot about the history of the Universe, but you may be surprised to learn that there are some mysteries we have yet to solve.
An OER Project teacher shares why Alphonse is on her must-do list for Unit 2: “This is a deceptively effective skill builder. The fictional framing reduces complexity, and the analytical habits transfer directly to historical content. I use it early and reference the framework repeatedly throughout the course.”
Students always have fun with OER Project’s unofficial mascot, Alphonse the Camel, but they can struggle with defining short-, intermediate-, and long-term causes. This community conversation provides classroom-ready strategies for helping students understand these terms.
Everything that happens has a cause: we call this “causation.” Now that you know what it is, learn how historians use it every day!
Students often think it’s exciting to watch videos in the classroom, but educational video-watching is a skill, just like reading an article! To ensure students are getting the most from videos, be sure to set the context, require active viewing, and periodically check for understanding. Want more video tips? Check out the OER Project Video Guide.
The first threshold in Big History was passed billions of years ago, but it wouldn’t have happened without certain “ingredients” and a just-right set of conditions.
The Big Bang is one theory for the origins of the Universe, but what about the other theories? Showing students a clip from the movie Spider-Man: No Way Home or Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is a great hook to get students thinking about the Universe. Introduce students to a few of these theories: cosmic inflation, the multiverse theory, the black hole Universe, or the anti-Universe. Then, have students use their claim-testing skills to decide which theory sounds the most plausible.
As students watch the Big Bang video, help them engage critically with the material by providing a note-taking strategy or a graphic organizer, or have them answer the guiding questions and pause the video to check for understanding. Providing them with something to do while watching helps activate thinking and makes connections to prior knowledge.
The Big Bang created the building blocks for new complexity in the Universe. This is your opportunity to watch how it all went down.
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Guiding Questions
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Before you watch
Preview the questions below, and then review the transcript.
While you watch
Look for answers to these questions:
- What were the first elements in the Universe?
- Why is the Big Bang the first threshold of increasing complexity?
- What evidence do we have that the Big Bang happened?
- What questions do we still have about the Big Bang?
After you watch
Respond to this question: Do you think we will figure out what caused the Big Bang? Explain your reasoning.
This activity aligns with Standard 1 of the National Geography Standards (NGS) and helps students understand how to use different types of geographic representations to ask and answer geographic questions. Explore Big History’s geography resources and how each activity aligns to the NGS in this alignment and placement doc.
How can we begin to understand the age and vastness of the Universe? Maps and timelines can help!
You’ve learned a lot about the early Universe in this lesson. Now it’s time to put that knowledge to work.
Did you know that one of the most important physicists of the twentieth century is also remembered as the “First Lady of Physics”? Learn more about the life and accomplishments of Dr. Wu in this blog post by historian Bennett Sherry.
So you now know how every scientist’s work builds on the work of other scientists. You’re about to meet one of the big ones in the discipline of physics.
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Guiding Questions
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Before you read
Preview the questions below, and then skim the comic, paying attention to things like prominent colors, shapes, and types of text and fonts. How do you know where to start and in which direction to read? What’s in the gutters (the space between panels)? Who or what is the focus of the comic?
While you read
Look for answers to these questions:
- How did Chien-Shiung Wu overcome the challenges she faced as she became a physicist?
- What does it mean to say that the Universe is “left-handed”?
- What role did Dr. Wu play in the discovery of our “left-handed” Universe?
- Why was Dr. Wu’s 1956 experiment important to collective learning?
- What information do you get from the comic’s images?
After you read
Respond to these questions:
- Had you heard about Chien-Shiung Wu before reading this comic?
- Why do you think someone like Dr. Wu isn’t featured in more of the big stories about collective learning?
Are your students new to reading historical comics? We’ve got a mini lesson to help them get the most out of these materials that includes a short video, tool, and introductory activity. Check out our graphic biographies lesson plan to learn more.
Dr. Vera Rubin examined the stars her entire life, and along the way, her observations transformed astronomy.
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Guiding Questions
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Before you read
Preview the questions below, and then skim the comic, paying attention to things like prominent colors, shapes, and types of text and fonts. How do you know where to start and in which direction to read? What’s in the gutters (the space between panels)? Who or what is the focus of the comic?
While you read
Look for answers to these questions:
- What does the portion of the comic involving bathroom doors tell you about Dr. Rubin’s experience as a scientist?
- What does it mean that Dr. Rubin’s most important observation was something we can’t see?
- What evidence did Dr. Rubin use to uncover the existence of dark matter?
- What does Dr. Rubin mean in this quote at the top of the page: “We’re out of kindergarten, but only in about third grade”?
- How has the artist designed the page, text, and illustrations to tell you about Dr. Rubin’s observations and career?
After you read
Respond to the following questions:
- What does this biography tell you about how our understanding of the Universe has changed?
- How did perceptions of Dr. Rubin’s observations change over time?
