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Unit 1 Overview: What Is Big History? (8:43)

Key Ideas

As this video progresses, key ideas will be introduced to invoke discussion.

Key Ideas

Think about the following questions as you watch the video


  1. 01:00 What is the purpose of an origin story?
  2. 03:07 What are thresholds of increasing complexity?
  3. 05:14 How does learning about the scientific principles of our Universe fit into a history class?
  4. 05:39 What is scale switching?
  5. 06:16 What are the claim testers and why are they important in this course?
  6. 07:52 Why should we study more than just “recorded history”—all the stuff that came after writing was invented?