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Big History Syllabus

2015-2016 School Year
Instructor Information
Instructor Email Office Location & Hours
Kyle Hopkinson Kyle_hopkinson@scps.k12.fl.us ?
General Information
Description
Big History is a social studies course that spans 13.8 billion years. It weaves insights from many disciplines to form a
single story that helps us better understand people, civilizations, and how we are connected to everything around us.
For an overview, see David Christians TED Talk entitled The History of the World in 18 mins

Big History challenges students to think critically and broadly, and tries to ignite a passion for inquiry and exploration.
In addition to helping students master the sequence and scope of 13.8 billion years, the course focuses on three
essential skills: thinking across scale, integrating multiple disciplines, and making and testing claims
Expectations and Goals
1. Explain how thresholds of increasing complexity, differing scales of time and space, claim testing,
and collective learning help us understand historical, current, and future events as part of a larger
narrative.
2. Integrate perspectives from multiple disciplines to create, defend, and evaluate
3. Deepen an understanding of key historical and scientific concepts and facts; use these in
constructing explanations.
4. Engage in meaningful scientific inquiry and historical investigations by being able to hypothesize,
form researchable questions, conduct research, revise ones thinking, and present findings that are
well-supported by scientific and historical evidence.
5. Critically evaluate, analyze, and synthesize primary and secondary historical, scientific, and
technical texts to form well-crafted and carefully supported written and oral arguments.
6. Communicate arguments to a variety of audiences to support claims through analysis of substantive
texts and topics; use valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence through individual or shared
writing, speaking, and other formats.
Course Materials
Required Materials
All of the content is available online. A completely web-based model ensures the content is up-to-date, relieves
schools of the need for costly textbooks, and helps teachers engage students by providing approachable, media-rich
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materials that can be used in different ways. Students and teachers are issued a personal login to gain access to the
school version of the course.
This course DOES NOT REQUIRE CONSTANT INTERNET ACCESS FOR THE CLASS
Required Text
DQ Note Book Full Sized College Rule Spiral Note Book
Class Notebook 2inch Binder, 11 Dividers (Units and PBL)
Semester 1 Course Schedule (Subject to Change)
Week(s) Topic Sections Guiding Q
2 Weeks Unit 1 What is Big History? 4 sections Why do we look at things from far
away and close up?
3 Weeks Unit 2 The Big Bang 3 Sections How and why do individuals change
their mind?
3 Weeks Unit 3 Stars and Elements 3 Sections How can looking at the same
information from different
perspective pave the way for
progress?
3 Weeks Unit 4 Our Solar System
and Earth
4 Sections How and why do theories become
generally accepted?
4 Weeks (PBL1) Unit 5 Life 4 Sections How are we still evolving?
2 Weeks PBL 1 Invent a Species N/A Big Question Summative Assignment

1
st
Semester Project Schedule (Dates Subject to Change)
Unit Subject
Unit 1 History of Me
Unit 2 Claim Testing - The Big Bang
Unit 3 Grading Silver Supernova
Unit 4 Claim Testing Geology and the Earths Formation
PBL 1 Invent a Species (Semester 1 Exam Grade)
Additional Information and Resources
Project Based Learning
Project-based learning (PBL) is an instruction method that has students explore a complex question, problem, or
challenge in depth. Veteran Big History teachers have reported having great fun, and successful learning when using
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these projects. Each activity covers two weeks of instructional time. The Big History Project includes three PBL
activities:
Examples
i. Unit 5: Invent a Species
ii. Unit 7: Feeding the World
iii. Unit 10: What Is the Next Threshold?
PBL is a method of instruction that has students take part in an extended inquiry around a complex question, problem,
or challenge.
What are the essential elements of PBL?
Focusing on significant content
Developing 21st-century skills
Engaging students in in-depth inquiry
Organizing tasks around a driving question
Establishing a desire to know
Incorporating revision and reflection
Including a public audience
Alignment
The Big History Project helps meet Common Core ELA standards from the ground up, starting with the learning
outcomes, and including assessment and lesson activities.
How does the course align to existing standards?
There is strong alignment between the Big History course and the Common Core State Standards. We will
continue to purposefully engineer our content and assessment strategy to support the following specific
standards:
Reading Standards for Literacy in History/Social Studies
Reading Standards for Literacy in Science and Technical Subjects
Writing Standards for Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science and Technical Subjects
Speaking and Listening Standards for Grades 910
BHP is also aligned with the National World History Standards, and we will be exploring opportunities to complement
other local, state, and network-specific standards to deepen our relationship to partner schools.
Extras
Key academic partners: Guest lecturers bring the ideas of Big History to life and provide students unique glimpses into different
fields:
David Christian
Walter Alvarez
Cynthia Stokes Brown
Sal Khan (Khan Academy)
Skip Gates
John Green and Hank Green
(Crash Course Youtube)
History Channel H2
Ted Talks and TedX
Bill Gates: Businessman and
philanthropist.

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