Day 2: Tuesday, July 9, 2013

Post date: Jul 9, 2013 4:22:54 PM

Essential Questions:

1. What are the 8 thresholds of Big History? Why are they important?

2. According to Big History, has the universe evolved at a constant pace?

Today we started off by looking at your histories of TBLS. Then, we watched David Christian's TED Talk, focusing on the thresholds of Big History and why they are important. In particular, we noted the significance of the time between thresholds, the idea of increasing complexity, acceleration in our world, and the concept of collective learning. Here are the Thresholds of Big History. We ended class by revising your TBLS histories.

Your HW is to

1. Read and annotate Cynthia Stokes-Brown, Big History, page 1-7. (this is in the Big History packet of excerpted readings from Stokes-Brown's book that you have).
2. Read and annotate the comic "The Claim Testers". Who are the characters and what do they do?
3. We will have a quiz on the 8 thresholds of Big History at the start of class tomorrow. Pay particular attention the the timeline of the thresholds and the scale of the timeline - how much time is in between each threshold?