Big Bang to Earth
Driving Question: How can thresholds of increasing complexity help us understand the formation of the Universe, our Solar System, and Earth?
Big History’s thresholds of increasing complexity explain how a Universe composed mainly of hydrogen and helium became one filled with billions of stars and planets.
Learning Objective:
- Explain how complexity increased from the origins of the Universe to the formation of the Earth.
Vocab Terms:
- Big Bang
- collective learning
- complexity
- Earth
- element
- solar system
- star
The Unit Notebook is a great opportunity for informal writing. Informal writing helps solidify ideas and support retention and understanding of concepts, events, and eras. For more support on informal writing, including its benefits, check out the first two pages of the Writing Guide.
What do you already know about the Universe, our Solar System, and Earth? Put your knowledge to the test!
You’re about to learn almost 10 billion years of history. Luckily, it won’t take anywhere near that long to learn how our Universe went from being really simple to really complex.
While the audio story of the first four Big History thresholds is short, it’s packed with information. We’ve paired the audio with a graphic transcript, but you could also set up learning stations in your classroom and have small groups complete the transcript for one threshold, sharing out with the class when everyone is finished.
The Universe is like life: it starts simple, but it gets complicated fast! The next steps show you how it happened.
Closers often prompt students to engage in informal writing and can be used to preview content for upcoming lessons, but most important, they provide you with excellent opportunities to quickly check for understanding.
Get students’ creative juices flowing by extending this closer and having them make a threshold commercial with their jingle.
How did the Universe change during its first 10 billion years of existence? Show off your musical talents, and your new knowledge, by writing a song about the early days of the Universe.
The history of science is often dominated by European contributions. Expand the story by highlighting the work of Islamic scholars and the discoveries that led to new models of the Universe.
We often think of scientists as lone geniuses who had “aha!” moments and discovered the secrets of the Universe. In reality, scientific breakthroughs happen thanks to information shared across generations.
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Guiding Questions
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Before you read
Preview the questions below, and then skim the article. Be sure to look at the section headings and any images.
While you read
Look for answers to these questions:
- The scientist Isaac Newton said, “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” What did he mean?
- When and where was the “golden age”?
- What are “invisible giants”?
- Who contributes to collective learning?
- Why is it difficult to write the history of collective learning?
After you read
Respond to this question: What is an example of collective learning in your life?
You would not believe how many fights there have been over whether the Sun orbits the Earth, or the Earth orbits the Sun. Learn how Muslim scholars contributed to settling the question once and for all!
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Guiding Questions
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Before you read
Preview the questions below, and then skim the article. Be sure to look at the section headings and any images.
While you read
Look for answers to these questions:
- What is the heliocentric model?
- What is one important contribution of a scholar who worked between the times of Ptolemy and Copernicus?
- Why was astronomy a major field in the Islamic world?
- Why was the Maragha Observatory significant?
- What are two differences between the two models of the Universe depicted in the article’s images?
After you read
Respond to this question: What evidence does the author provide to convince you that the work of scholars at the Maragha Observatory influenced Copernicus’s Sun-centered model?
