Gaining a sense of how much and what types of energy we use today helps us understand how much things have really changed over the last 500 years. It also helps us think about how our energy consumption impacts the Earth, and what this might mean for the future.

How do we know that life is different today from what it was 500 or 1,000 years ago? One way to answer this question is to look at how humans’ lives have changed from then to now, specifically in one area where dramatic change has taken place: energy use.

List all of the energy you have used in the last 24 hours. This might be in the form of electric energy, energy from food, and fuel for transportation to name a few.

Once you’ve listed everything that you can remember, examine your list and determine if energy was used for those same uses 100 years ago. How about 500 years ago? Talk to your class about how much more energy is being consumed today as compared to the past. Do you think this rise in energy consumption impacts the planet? Do you think we’ll keep using this much energy or more in the future? Do we have the resources to support this energy usage?

Understanding vocabulary helps you access course content and become a better reader, a better writer, and a better communicator. This word wall activity will help you begin to learn some of the key vocabulary from the unit.

In this activity, you’ll work with your class to create a word wall using the Unit 9 vocabulary.

Your teacher will assign a vocab card to each of you. Once you get yours, take a few minutes to look it up in the Vocab Guide and then examine the unit itself (click around and quickly skim the content) to see where in the unit your word might be most applicable. Then, add as many antonyms to your card for your word as possible. Be careful if you decide to use the “related words” section from the vocab guide—it doesn’t distinguish between synonyms and antonyms. Your teacher will give you a limited amount of time to write antonyms. Then, the people with the most correct antonyms at the end of the time will put their words on the word wall first.

Your teacher may add some fun twists to this assignment, so be sure to listen closely for directions!

This activity will help you focus on one of the biggest ideas in Unit 9.

Take your first pass at this unit’s driving question: To what extent has the Modern Revolution been a positive or a negative force?

The Industrial Revolution consisted of a series of innovations that sped up the production of goods by using machines. These machines required new sources of energy such as fossil fuels like coal. Innovation in the textile industry soon spurred other innovations, and together they transformed how people lived and worked.

The Industrial Revolution transformed the way that goods are produced, and this transformation is a major feature of the Modern Revolution. The Industrial Revolution saw the rise of production in factories rather than in homes or small shops, the production of goods by machines rather than by hand, and the growth of a class of workers paid in wages. Understanding these changes deepens our understanding of exactly how and why acceleration occurred in this time period.

Preview

Before the Industrial Revolution most people grew their own food to support themselves and their families. What they needed to survive in terms of clothing, furniture, and utensils they either made themselves or traded for the food they produced. During the Industrial Revolution, machines powered by steam and fossil fuels began to speed up the production of textiles, and this work moved from homes and small shops into factories. As production of these items grew, costs were lowered, and it became easier for people to buy the items that they had typically made. This was just one of the many ways that the Industrial Revolution changed how the average person lived.

Key Ideas—Factual

Think about the following questions as you watch the video:

1. How is the Industrial Revolution different from other revolutions, like the American, French, Latin American, and Haitian revolutions?
2. What kind of work did most people do before the Industrial Revolution?
3. What is the definition of the Industrial Revolution?
4. When and where did the Industrial Revolution begin?
5. What is Eurocentrism and why have explanations for the Industrial Revolution sometimes been called Eurocentric?
6. Why have some historians criticized the Eurocentric focus on cultural superiority?
7. If cultural superiority can’t explain why the Industrial Revolution began in England, what other factors might explain it?
8. Why were wages so important?

Thinking Conceptually

Do you think that you would have made the choice to switch from working the land and producing what you needed to survive, to working in a factory and collecting wages? What kinds of challenges do you think this new lifestyle would have posed?

The Industrial Revolution was built on innovation. The steam engine was designed to help pump water out of mines, but this machine was improved and modified for use in the textile industry, in transportation, and in many other areas. The changes were both positive and negative but one thing was certain: the Industrial Revolution led to an acceleration in collective learning that we are still experiencing today.

Understanding more about the Industrial Revolution helps you gain even more knowledge about all of the changes and innovations that accelerated the pace of change in the world. This adds another dimension to your understanding of the contributing factors that led to global change.

Skimming for Gist

A key idea for understanding the modern world is the idea of innovation. When humans are able to innovate, they can produce the food and products needed to sustain the growing population. Much of the human history we have looked at in big history has been characterized by periods of innovation, but these innovations could not sustain the growth of populations and production of goods for very long. Consequently, periods of growth were followed by periods of decline. In contrast, the modern world has been characterized by steady growth, without decline. Moreover, what has characterized this growth, particularly recently, has been its accelerating pace.

Understanding Content

By the end of the second close read, you should be able to answer the following questions about networks of collective learning:

1. If you had lived before the Industrial Revolution, what would have been your main sources of power?
2. What were the first steam engines built to do?
3. How did James Watt make the steam engine better—how did he innovate and improve on this invention?
4. After steam engines were improved, for what other purposes were they used? In other words, how did other inventors innovate on this innovation?
5. What information does this article add to what you learned in the Crash Course video about why the Industrial Revolution started England?
6. How did the innovations of the Industrial Revolution spread to other countries from Great Britain?

Thinking Conceptually

At the end of the third close read, you should respond to the following questions: The innovations of the Industrial Revolution transformed textile production. Can you think of innovations today in some other industry that are transforming that industry and changing the way humans live? What are some of the characteristics of this transformation that you think are similar to what happened in the Industrial Revolution? Are there characteristics of this transformation that you think make it different?

The Modern Revolution was made possible by increasing rates of innovation, which allowed humans to sustain long-term population and economic growth, something that eluded them during the agrarian era. This new level of innovation was made possible by the connection of the four world zones and the exploitation of new energy sources, like fossil fuels.

Acceleration defines the Modern Revolution and explains why human populations and economies have been able to grow dramatically, and sustain that growth. You need to understand the nature of acceleration and how this relates to why humans have been able to sustain innovation in the modern world when they could not do it in earlier times.

Preview

In the agrarian era life was characterized by ups and downs. Human populations were always threatened by war, disease, natural disasters, and famine. Though wars were initiated by humans, and thus were in their control to start or stop, humans had little control over the other factors. Humans had limited capacity through most of the agrarian age to innovate to the extent needed to support growing populations. Five hundred years ago humans began to take advantage of advances in transportation, exploring then unknown parts of the world and beginning the exchange of people, ideas, plants, animals, and diseases between formerly separate regions. These exchanges helped stimulate innovations, which 250 years ago helped usher in the modern world.

Key Ideas—Factual

Think about these questions as you watch the video:

Part I

1. Why did closer connections between the four world zones encourage an acceleration of innovation 500 years ago?
2. Why did commerce and markets encourage an acceleration of innovation?
3. How did the discovery of new fossil fuels help to accelerate innovation?

Part II

4. Why did industrialization encourage innovation and what are some examples of this innovation?
5. How did the Industrial Revolution help change governments around the world?
6. How did industrialization help transform ideas of wealth and power in the world?
7. How is the industrialized world different from the non-industrialized world?

Thinking Conceptually

Do you think there is a limit to the acceleration of population, economic growth, and energy needs of today’s world? If so, why? If not, why not?

Acceleration is key to the argument that humans have moved from the agrarian era, where innovation was hard to sustain, into the modern era, where innovation can support sustained growth.

You have been learning about acceleration this entire lesson. This article focuses in on acceleration itself and not just the causes of it. By encountering concrete examples of acceleration, you can make connections to better understand the process as a whole.

Skimming for Gist

When you look around you, your gut probably tells you that innovation is everywhere, but you probably don’t give much thought to the innovation happening around you. However, if you think for a moment about the history of innovation in computers or cell phones in recent years, you can see quite clearly that the pace of innovation is quite extraordinary. If your parents bought a PC, for example, in the 1980s, the hard drive probably had 5 megabytes of storage space. By the 1990s, around the time you were born, PCs routinely had one gigabyte of storage. And today it is common for PCs to come with one terabyte of storage. This is an incredible amount of innovation in a short period of time.

Understanding Content

By the end of the second close read, you should be able to answer the following questions about acceleration:

1. What are some examples of acceleration in the modern world?
2. Is the evidence for acceleration in the modern world convincing?
3. Do you think the amount of innovation in the last 20 years is unusual, or do you think that any 20-year period in the last 250 years is going to exhibit this amount of technological innovation?

Thinking Conceptually

At the end of the third close read, respond to these questions : What examples of acceleration have you noticed in your life? Are you able to do things today because of technological innovation that you were not able to do a few years ago?

In this activity you will be asked to apply what you have learned about acceleration by examining whether or not rates of innovation can keep up with rates of acceleration. Understanding this will help you to better predict the state of our world in the future.

Claim testing
A good debater backs up their own assertions with support, and demands their opponents do the same. Remember to use the language of claim testing as you prepare to debate.

Your teacher will divide your class into two “position” groups. One group will argue that innovation can keep up with acceleration, and the other group will argue that it cannot. Your group is responsible for researching its position and preparing an argument to support its point of view.

Questions your group should consider:

• What are some of the problems we face as a result of our success in creating the modern world?
• How could these problems be addressed, if at all? What might happen if we do not address these problems?

Use the Debate Prep Worksheet to help you prepare for the debate. Don’t forget to review the Debate Format Guide so you are aware of how much time you have for each section of the debate. It’s also helpful to look at the Debate Rubric as you prepare since this will help ensure that you meet all debate criteria. This is also what your teacher will use to grade your performance.