Scale
Human beings have a hard time with scale. How do you get your mind around a grain of sand compared to a planet? A decade of a person’s life compared to billions of years in the life of a star? In these scale activities and lessons, you’ll get a Big History perspective on humanity and our Universe. Use it to help students master the art of scale switching, a tool that will change the way they think.
Featured Materials
Scale – Human History on a String
Activity
Scale – Human History on a String
How do you compare a 13.8-billion-year history of the entire Universe with a timeline of human accomplishments? All you need is a calculator and some string!
Scale – Timelines
Activity
Scale – Timelines
Timelines are extremely useful tools to help understand the scale of history, but how do you fit all the important events on one line?
Scale – Big History on a Football Field
Activity
Scale – Big History on a Football Field
Put the time scale of Big History into perspective using your school's football field.
To Scale: The Solar System
Video
To Scale: The Solar System
If the Sun is a huge beach ball and the Earth is a little marble, how far apart should they be if you are making a true scale model of the Solar System?
Scale – History of Me
Activity
Scale – History of Me
Time to compose your own history, but you have to think big. Tell your story thinking about your family, your community, your nation, and the planet as a whole.
Explore the lesson plan
Lesson 1.1
Scale
The secret to the challenge of Big History’s 13.8-billion-year timeline is to look at each topic at the appropriate scale. We zoom out and in, from the broadest timelines to the narrowest, from the lives of individuals to the formation of planets.
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