Our future faces several potential problems, but we’re also equipped with plenty of tools to make positive changes now. How can empathy help us solve even the most pressing global issues?
Big History weaves evidence and insights about the Universe (and our place in it) from many scientific and historical disciplines into a unified and coherent narrative. The concept of Big History arose from a desire to go beyond specialized and self-contained fields of study to a deeper understanding of history as a whole. Big History explores how we are connected to everything around us, and where we may be heading. It provides a foundation for thinking about the future and the changes that are reshaping our world.
To support your middle and high school students at home, veteran BHP teacher Rachel Hansen will guide students daily through the Big History Project on Khan Academy. She will provide content recommendations for each day, along with a Word of the Day and guiding questions. The Khan Academy version of the course also includes a comprehensive set of practice quizzes and activities for students at home.
If you are a parent who wants a little more support as you use these materials with your kids, sign up as a home school teacher at bhp.oerproject.com and join the BHP Teacher Community. There you’ll find real-time support from other BHP educators and academics as you support your students, and get answers to your own questions.
Rachel teaches at Muscatine High School in Muscatine, IA — where she and her students like to wear flannels on Fridays and name their class plants. She’s taught the Big History Project for six years and serves as a teacher leader for the program. In addition, Rachel is a National Geographic Explorer whose work focuses on storytelling for impact using podcasts. When not teaching social studies, Rachel enjoys going on outdoor adventures, coaching basketball, and dinking around on the piano.
Our future faces several potential problems, but we’re also equipped with plenty of tools to make positive changes now. How can empathy help us solve even the most pressing global issues?
Why do we need the past in order to make informed decisions about the future? Today we’ll take a look at what historical evidence can do for us today and even into the deep future, trillions of years from…
The interconnection of our planet and our acceleration of energy use has brought with it plenty of challenges. Today Alphonse the camel will be here to help us identify the biggest problems facing humanity…
The world is more interconnected than ever before. Today we can cross the Atlantic Ocean in under eight hours. It took Columbus over a month. Are we better for it?
Driving Question…
We’ve studied 13.8 billion years of history in this course. Now it’s time to reflect on what we’ve learned!
Driving Question: What were the most significant events…
We live in the healthiest and wealthiest age in history, yet those qualities are not shared equally among people around the globe. Today we'll examine how acceleration increased inequality.
Humans have become the dominant species on the planet. Have our actions been overall more positive or more negative?
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Driving Question: To what extent has the Anthropocene been positive…
Many of the comforts of our modern life can be traced to the Industrial Revolution, from the clothes we wear to the foods we eat. Alphonse the camel returns as co-host to examine how the Industrial Revolution…
What kinds of energy have you used in the past 24 hours? Which of those sources were used 100 years, or 500 years in the past? Our appetite for energy has accelerated during the Modern Revolution!
Just a few hundred years after the interconnection of the world zones, there was a dramatic acceleration in innovation and population growth. These changes ushered in the Modern Revolution.
Where does our stuff come from? Why does it matter? Most of the things we buy and eat were made far from our homes. Today we’ll trace the journey of our stuff from raw material to finished product.…
What did we do before the invention of money? And who invented it? Will it ever go away completely? Today we’re doing a little big history of money!
Driving Question: How has…
More people, more connections, and more exchange lead to innovation. Today Alphonse the camel is back to co-host our discussion on the ways that new networks of trade and migration increased our ability…
In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue...and then what?! This initial exchange of people, goods, ideas, plants, animals, and diseases changed the world forever.
Driving Question…
Your civilization is growing in population and power, but it’s also running out of resources. As the leader, would you decide to tax your people or invade your neighbors? Today we’ll explore the question…
If you’ve ever played a game of telephone then you understand how unreliable human memory is on its own. The invention of writing was a game-changer! No more telephone. Humans finally had a way to efficiently…
As farming spread, so did humans! These migrations led to increased populations, more innovations, and a huge increase in collective learning. What are the effects of the movement of people around the…
Early cities were complex! We can find evidence of art, writing, law codes, and new and complex ways of organizing society. Today, Alphonse the camel will help us unpack what life was like in early cities…
The domestication of plants and animals meant more people could settle in one place, allowing our populations to grow larger and denser. Over time, cities, states and empires emerged.
The invention of farming about 12,000 years ago meant that humans finally stopped chasing their food and settled down to farm! This gave us vast new food and energy resources, which dramatically changed…
What was a day in the life of early humans like? Wake up at dawn. Walk in search of water and food. Try not to get injured while hunting. Maybe just go fishing instead—that seems safer. Relax with family…
Can you imagine a pink elephant? Even though you’ve never seen one, it is possible to conjure up an image in your head. Humans are unique in their ability to imagine things that don’t exist and never will…
We often teach dogs a few basic tricks: sit, stay, and fetch. However, have you ever seen dogs teach one another tricks? Dogs mimic behavior, but they can’t pass on new knowledge. If they could, we wouldn…
How can we know what happened millions of years ago if no one was there to see it? Today we’re going to be archaeologists! We’re going to investigate what the fossils of early peoples and the items they…
Did we evolve from monkeys? In this lesson, we’ll investigate the key milestones in the evolution of our species, homo sapiens.
Driving Question: How did our early ancestors…