4. The Story of Humans

This chapter in the Montessori story of Cosmic Education contains the remaining three thresholds of Christian's Big History course, with special attention to the first of the three, Creation of our Species. Lower elementary students in Montessori classrooms are first introduced to a study of the way humans track time, using materials to learn about the clock and the calendar, about our BC/AD timeline, and about how to count centuries. (METTC 2013c: 13–27).

A fascinating lesson in the midst of this study is the one called the 'Long Black Line,' where the teacher unrolls a 30-meter length of black yarn while she tells a summary version of the story of the planet Earth and its life forms, alerting students to watch for the change in color to red signifying the arrival of humans on the planet – which finally reveals itself in the last centimeter of the roll (METTC 2013c: 30). Maria Montessori is said to have developed this lesson to put in perspective the boasts of the antiquity of their civilization by her student-teachers in India.

Yet another dramatically impressionistic lesson consists in stretching out the tiny strip of red (indicating the presence of humans) at the very end of the Timeline of Life into a long red strip of cloth indicating the full scope of human history. A human hand clutches a handaxe about halfway through to signify that we are toolmakers. Children are asked to look for a change in color once again to indicate another significant development. At the very end of the lengthy strip of red cloth is a thin gold strip indicating the relatively brief time since humans have used the tool of writing (CMTE/NY 2012b: 21–23).

Students are first exposed to what we traditionally call world history through a series of studies called 'Fundamental Human Needs'. This begins with the identification of elements that we tend to consider essential for human survival, such as food, shelter, clothing, defense, transportation, and more spiritual needs such as art and religion (METTC 2013c: 31–36). Students use picture and card materials placed on a timeline to do a 'vertical' study that traces particular needs back in time (the deeper we dig archeologically, the older artifacts we find); then they compile all the information from the same time period – or horizontal level of the dig – to do a profile of a particular culture. The main point of the whole study is that all groups of human beings, in every place and time, have the same fundamental needs and simply meet them in different ways because of the time and place they live – human unity in diversity, a major theme of Cosmic Education.

At the upper elementary level, beginning in the equivalent of 4th grade, students formally explore the 'Timeline of Humans', beginning with a cladogram-aided search for our closest living relatives and then our
closest fossil relatives. In the process, they learn that we are at once alike and different from other animals. Through a series of materials, students learn about Australopithecus, Homo habilis, Homo erectus, Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, and Homo sapiens sapiens, focusing on their growing similarity to us and the characteristics that distinguish them from each other. (CMTE/NY 2012b: 13–40) As they move into the study of the ‘Timeline of Modern Humans’, they learn about the impact of the transition from a hunter-gatherer, nomadic, tribal society to the agriculture-based beginnings of settled village life. This is when humans moved out of the Paleolithic into the Neolithic, or new stone age period (CMTE/NY 2012b: 54–75).

Next, students at this level study ‘Ancient Civilizations’ of every continent. These lessons focus more on the way each group of people met their fundamental needs and went about their daily living than on the rulers, monuments and events like wars that helped define each people (Ibid.: 76–89). This sometimes leads into studies of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance in Western culture.

Finally, they study their own nation within the context of the preceding chapters of the story. For those in the United States, for example, the study of US History is preceded by a lengthy preface on Early Americans from the time humans first settled the continent. The study of American History itself is in the context of all that has gone before, making it just an example of ways in which a particular group of people once met and continue to meet their fundamental human needs (CMTE/NY 2012b: 90–121). The same would be true for students anywhere in the world studying their own nation.

## Some General Remarks

This survey of the Montessori curriculum contains many parts that are similar to what is taught in traditional schools (e.g., Ancient Civilizations and U.S. History). However, there are other parts of the curriculum that are not usually taught to elementary-aged children (e.g., The Life Cycle of the Stars and the Timeline of Early Humans). It is not unusual for Montessori elementary students to know as much about early humans, at least in broad outlines, as students in university level paleoanthropology courses. At a lecture of Donald Johanson at a local university in Georgia, Montessori elementary students interested in his account of the discovery of ‘Lucy’ were the only audience participants to raise their hands when Johanson asked if anyone knew the scientific classification of humans (and one 11-year-old Johanson called on recited the full classification flawlessly). Many of these non-traditional lessons for elementary children are needed to flesh out the comprehensive story of Big
History on its most basic level – and they are an integral part of Maria Montessori's concept of Cosmic Education. Even those parts of the curriculum that are similar to a traditional curriculum are taught in a different way:

* Lessons are given with materials, and students are expected to work independently with the materials to internalize the main ideas and to expand on them as their interest dictates. There are no textbooks or lengthy lectures in Montessori classrooms. Students are expected to be active explorers who discover information on their own once they have been introduced to an area of study.

* The Montessori curriculum moves from the big picture of the universe itself inward to the immediate surroundings of the child, rather than the traditional approach of beginning with the child and moving outward to family, classroom, neighborhood, city, country, and world. This means that everything is taught in a larger context for better understanding.

* The materials include a series of inter-connected timelines, starting with the Clock of Eons (the history of our planet), the Timeline of Life (the history of the evolution of life), the Timeline of Humans (the history of the emergence of humans), the Timeline of Modern Humans (the history of human development into the Neolithic period), and the Timeline of Civilizations (the recorded history of ancient people in every continent). Each timeline is an expansion of the final portion of the previous timeline. The pedagogical approach of using sequential, interconnected timelines could be put to good use at the middle or high school level as well to highlight the major events in the unfolding of Big History.

* There are large collections of 'classified card' materials, consisting of a picture, label, and definition, in the subjects of History, Biology, Geography and the Physical Sciences. These materials – in addition to being a tool for developing the reading skills of young students – offer a summary of the minimum amount of nomenclature and basic information students need to learn in each subject area, give students a means to learn independently of the teacher, and provide a stimulus to exploring a subject in further detail according to one's interest.

An elementary school does not have to become a Montessori school to teach elements of Big History. But the experience of Montessori schools with the Cosmic Education curriculum can provide any school with age-appropriate tools and strategies to teach the fundamentals of Big History and leave them better prepared for a deeper study at the high school and university levels.

Montessori teachers certainly have a lot to learn from the Big History movement, particularly in relation to the scientific discoveries of
the more than half century since Maria Montessori's death. Tools that
could be particularly helpful are the Big History Project and Chrono-
zoom; while developed with high school students in mind, they can be
a rich resource for Montessori elementary teachers and their students.
However, the Big History movement can also learn a lot from the more
than century-old experience of Montessori pedagogy related to teaching
elementary aged children the story of the universe and our place within
it. Big History and Cosmic Education share the vision that we humans
are truly 'Children of the Universe'.

References

**Christian D. 2004.** *Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History*. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

**Christian D. 2006.** *Introduction to Course Guidebook for 'Big History: The Big Bang, Life on Earth, and the Rise of Humanity'*. Chantilly, VA: The Teaching Company.

**CMTE/NY 2012a.** *9-12 Biology Album*. Center for Montessori Teacher Education. New York, NY: White Plains.

**CMTE/NY 2012b.** *9-12 History Album*. Center for Montessori Teacher Education. New York, NY: White Plains.

**Duffy M. 2011.** *Timeline of the Early Universe (symposium presentation)*. New York: Center for Montessori Teacher Education

**Duffy M. and Duffy D. 2002.** *Children of the Universe: Cosmic Education in the Montessori Elementary Classroom*. Holidaysburg, PA: Parent Child Press.

**Dunbar J. L. 2009.** *Bang!: The Universe Verse: Book 1*. Berkeley, CA: Self-published.

**METTC 2013a.** *6-9 Biology Album*. Arlington, MA: Montessori Elementary Teacher Training Collaborative.

**METTC 2013b.** *6-9 Geography Album*. Arlington, MA: Montessori Elementary Teacher Training Collaborative.

**METTC 2013c.** *6-9 History Album*. Arlington, MA: Montessori Elementary Teacher Training Collaborative.

**Montessori M. 1973.** *To Educate the Human Potential*. Kalakhetra Publications. Madras, India.

**Morgan J. 2002.** *Born With a Bang: The Universe Tells Our Cosmic Story*. Nevada City, CA: Dawn Publications.

**Morgan J. 2003.** *From Lava to Life: The Universe Tells Our Earth Story*. Nevada City, CA: Dawn Publications.
## Abstract

Big History poses big questions addressing big issues like ‘How did we get here? Where are we going?’ and it encourages exploration of deep philosophical questions about the meaning of life and the nature of the cosmos. Answering these questions pushes teachers and students to move beyond the confines of traditional disciplinary boundaries to examine the interconnections between knowledge, ideas, and phenomena. Does this make Big History interdisciplinarity? Does Big History move beyond the interconnection of disciplinary knowledge to transcend these boundaries? Harnessing the experiences of Australian secondary Big History teachers, this paper explores the practical nature and definition(s) of the twenty-first century curriculum, learners, and interdisciplinarity in the secondary context. Through the lens of a pedagogical vehicle to equip future generations with the skills they need to live responsibly and effectively in an interconnected global community.

**Keywords:** interdisciplinarity, curriculum, pedagogy, secondary.

There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.

Albert Einstein

As both a high school teacher and a life-long learner, prior to engaging with Big History I did not much think about the Universe, my surroundings, or my place in them. I took my connection to our Universe for granted, as I am sure is the case for many people and students. As I learned more about Big History, I became increasingly aware of this vast expanse we inhabit, seeing wondrous things about me everywhere I looked. The mundane had become amazing and exciting. But beyond what I could see, at the level where I believe the transformative nature of Big History lives, was an approach to knowledge prioritising knowledge connection and exploration as an opportunity for learning and growth.

While Big History courses are growing in number at the tertiary level, the capacity of Big History to empower and engage secondary students is
great and much needed in a system traditionally dominated by discipli-
nary silos and a fragmented approach to knowledge dissemination.

This paper will explore the role of Big History as a model for inter-
disciplinary pedagogy at the secondary level, arguing for the powerful
role of Big History as a vehicle for teaching students to make connec-
tions and understand the interconnected world in which they live. First,
it identifies the characteristics that define twenty-first century learning
at the secondary level. Second, it examines the ‘spectrum’ of disciplinar-
ity identifying where current integration attempts in the Australian con-
text fall along this ‘spectrum’ and identifying what makes Big History
different. Third, it will take preliminary reflections from the Australian
secondary students currently studying Big History. It may sound trite
and definitely cliché to say children are the future, but this is ultimately
true and we need to prioritise examination and experimentation with
curriculum models and structures that will best equip them to face this
future. Big History as a learning opportunity for secondary students
most definitely needs to be a part of that conversation.

What do Twenty-First Century Learners and a Twenty-First Century Curriculum Look like?

What is this 'twenty-first century learner' and what do they need and
want in a valuable educational experience? 'Twenty-first century learn-
er' is one of those ubiquitous phrases thrown around to describe stu-
dents sitting in classrooms around the world. They are students for
whom we are working hard to provide empowering educational ex-
periences. Anne Shaw (2009: 14) has identified the following frame-
work, defining the key characteristics of these learners:

* they are pragmatic;

* they want to know how what they are learning relates to them and their lives;

* they want to know how will what they learn be of use to them as they navigate their practical day-to-day lives;

* the majority do not appreciate the process of learning for learn-
ing's sake;

* they are curious;

* they want to understand things and solve problems;

* they understand that knowledge is limitless and they want to know more, a critical characteristic of life-long learners;

* they are flexible, willing to follow their curiosity and be taken on a journey of discovery regardless of the 'rules' or perceived 'boundaries' of disciplinary knowledge, to make connections enacting their individuality and personal curiosities in the process;
* they are resourceful, understanding there is no one path to a destination, and keen to meet challenges, exploring options and possibilities as they are confronted.

From this arises the question of what characteristics a curriculum needs to embody to meet the needs of these learners and engage them in the learning process. Anne Shaw (2009: 13) has outlined six key characteristics of this type of curriculum (all of which are embedded in Big History through its themes and in its delivery). Primarily it is interdisciplinary (a more detailed discussion of interdisciplinarity will follow), providing enough flexibility for students to follow their curiosity and enact their resourcefulness. Big History aligns to these criteria via the posing of big picture questions requiring the connection of knowledge across disciplines as diverse as physics, chemistry, economics, archaeology, and anthropology. It is project-based, enacted as a pedagogical tool in Big History through the 'Little Big History' project. It is research driven, not only through student-based research as a vehicle for learning but at a curriculum assessment and measurement level. This is an area yet to be full developed in the field of Big History, but one with a huge growth potential as the popularity of Big History courses continues to expand at both the tertiary and secondary levels. It is community-connected: using the themes of increasing complexity and scale Big History helps students to see that community connection is enacted at the local, national, global, and universal levels. A twenty-first century curriculum requires students to engage multiple literacies, they need to be able to read across disciplinary-based literary conventions and make connections. An example in Big History would be reading across star charts, maps, the periodic table, narrative text, and film, to form hypotheses and answer large-scale questions. Finally, this curriculum embraces technology and multi-media as a tool for delivery and student engagement. The Big History Project course is a unique and valuable example of how this can be done effectively for the students' benefit.

Of the outlined six key characteristics of a twenty-first century curriculum it is no coincidence that interdisciplinarity is first and given a primary focus. Without a structure flexible enough to allow for students to read across disciplines and make connections, the requirements that follow cannot operate in a meaningful way. However, like the phrase 'twenty-first century learner' the word 'interdisciplinary' is often used without a clear understanding of what it actually means and how this looks in a curriculum model. This understanding is crucial if any model developed is to be effective.

**What is 'Interdisciplinarity' and What does it Look like?**

Terms related to the relationship between disciplines are commonly used in education circles, but what is less common is a clear definition
of what these terms mean: multi-disciplinary, interdisciplinary, trans-
disciplinary etc. (Bahr, Bahr, and Keogh 2005: 3). Is this a question of
semantics? Are these terms interchangeable? These terms definitely
have their own unique meanings and to have a clear understanding of
this is essential when undertaking curriculum development as a tool for
enhancing student engagement and improving learning outcomes.
Godinho and Shrimpton (2008: 3–12) have put forward the following
basic definitions:

*   **Disciplinary silo:** A branch of knowledge or teaching with a distinct set of rules or methods guiding its practise;

*   **Multi-disciplinarity:** Examination of a problem or question through a specific discipline focus, with content from other disciplines added;

*   **Interdisciplinarity:** Integration of knowledge to solve problems or answer questions that cannot be adequately addressed by one discipline alone;

*   **Transdisciplinarity:** Transcending discipline boundaries, juxtaposing disciplinary perspectives, and interrelatedness of disciplines.

These categories may be interpreted as forming a hierarchy (Limerick and Thomas 1990: 3) of levels that one must successfully achieve before ‘moving-up’ to the next. I would rather view these categories as sitting along a spectrum allowing the flexibility for curriculum models to sit between categorisations (see Fig. 1). I would argue that historically ‘traditional’ curriculum models at a secondary level have been positioned strongly at the level of the disciplinary silo.

<figure><img src="image_28.png" /><figcaption>Fig. 1. Categories spectrum</figcaption></figure>
In recent years in the Australian secondary educational landscape there
have been large-scale attempts to embrace an interdisciplinary curricu-
lum model, including developing:

* Key Learning Areas (Marsh and Harris 2005: 5): The grouping of disciplines is perceived to be complementary but the realities of school-based delivery are predominantly executed as discrete disciplines, for example Human Sciences and Environment (History, Geography, Commerce, and Legal Studies etc. [Board of Studies NSW 2008]); Technology at School (Computing, Industrial Arts, and Child Studies etc.); Studies of Sciences and the Environment (Collins 2009: 5) (an integration of History, Geography, and Social Studies etc.).

* Cross-Curriculum Priorities and General Capabilities: A key feature of the recent move to a nation-wide Australian Curriculum (Australian Curriculum and Reporting Authority 2011). Worthwhile and intended to be integrated into the delivery of all subjects. However, in light of time constraints and the reality of the day-to-day classroom environment may be viewed as having partially political underpinnings and essentially unrealistic considering prevailing resourcing and time issues.

* 'Interdisciplinary' electives: Offerings such as Environmental Studies, Humanities, and International Studies. These offerings stretch disciplinary boundaries to incorporate other content or sub-divide the broader discipline to incorporate knowledge from across these sub-divisions. These electives often do not necessarily use content and knowledge from other disciplines to answer broader big picture questions in a holistic way.

* Inquiry-based curriculum models (Board of Studies NSW 2003): In Australia, the examples of this type of framing include disciplinary-based questioning such as, in History: 'How did new ideas and technological innovations develop to contribute to the change during the period from 1750 to 1918?' or in Science investigate: 'How did the theory of plate tectonics develop, based on evidence of sea-floor spreading and occurrence of earthquakes and volcanic activity?' These are two very isolated content examples within much broader and complex curriculum documents, but it is the nature not the content of the questions that is the focus of this examination. This type of framing does go beyond detailing simple content lists of information that students must 'know', and it does require the integration of disciplinary skills to address the inquiry. However, they fall short of posing a broader problem (Williams 1996: 2) through which to direct the inquiry or investigation and pull together or integrate the varied disciplinary knowledge. There is no big picture question to umbrella the inquiries in a larger interdisciplinary context.

Thus, I would argue that in Australia the current attempts at produc-
ing large-scale interdisciplinary curriculum models move beyond the tra-
ditional disciplinary-silo bound structure to a more multidisciplinary approach, examining questions and problems from a key disciplinary focus by bringing in the content from other disciplines, but do not qualify as being interdisciplinary (see Fig. 1).

So what makes Big History different? I would argue that there are four key characteristics that define Big History as interdisciplinary: scope, balance, relevance, and interrelatedness. The fundamental questions posed by Big History, as a contemporary scientific origin story – where did we come from? How did we get here and where are we going – are broad enough in scope, so it is impossible to answer them using the content or conventions of a single discipline (Christian 2011: 1–4). They are also expansive enough to engage the pragmatism, flexibility, and curiosity of the twenty-first century student. The key themes and the narrative of increasing complexity and thresholds provide a balance whereby the framework is flexible enough for students to follow their curiosities but tight enough for them to enact their resourcefulness without becoming lost. This balance also gives voice to their pragmatism as they constantly face problems and inquiries perceived as relevant to their lives and the world around them not for the process of inquiry itself. The nature of the fundamental questions posed in Big History means that at every stage of the course students are continually being reminded of the relevance of what they are learning to their lives and the world they live in. Big History is not an offering that jumps from discipline to discipline for the sake of trying to make a connection. It demonstrates how within the scope of big picture questions, knowledge is intuitively interrelated and these connections appear naturally, not as a kind of forced symmetry. These factors move Big History along the disciplinary spectrum past being multidisciplinary to interdisciplinary, ‘integrating knowledge to answer questions or solve problems that cannot be addressed by one discipline alone’ (Godinho and Shrimpton 2008: 3–12) (see Fig. 1).

I would, however, argue that at a secondary level Big History does not present as trans-disciplinary. This is not because of the inherent structure or content of Big History but because of the learning and conceptual capabilities of secondary students, especially at a pre-senior secondary school level. In terms of a spiralled approach to developing understanding (Bruner 1967: 29) a student needs to be aware of disciplinary boundaries before they can transcend them, thus this is a pedagogically-based distinction. At tertiary level and beyond, the argument for Big History being defined as trans-disciplinary is valid and the one that, while not being in the context of this discussion, could be made (see Fig. 1).
## The ‘Big History Quilt’: A Powerful Example of Interconnection

This is a photograph of the ‘Big History quilt’ (Fig. 2) and an excerpt from the accompanying blog (Fig. 3). It is appropriate and necessary to discuss student learning, approaches to curriculum frameworks, and pedagogies from theoretical and large-scale perspectives. However, the most meaningful enactment of all this discussion and decision-making plays out in the experience of an individual student. This is one such example.

<figure><img src="image_29.png" /><figcaption>Fig. 2. Big History quilt</figcaption></figure>

Source: Diniyoyo 2012a.

<figure><img src="image_30.png" /><figcaption>Fig. 3. Big History Quilt blog</figcaption></figure>

Source: Diniyoyo 2012b.
This woman, an avid quilt maker recovering from a stroke, listened to Professor David Christian's Teaching Company lectures (Christian 2008) while recuperating. She was inspired to create this quilt based on the eight thresholds of increasing complexity. Introducing her children to the field of Big History she enrolled them in the process of designing and creating this magnificent quilt. She also recruited them in creating a blog to accompany the quilt-making process cataloguing its creation and their journey of Big History discovery.

I would like to focus on the children's experience. Here is an example of the power of Big History as a framework to develop meaningful learning experiences for students, meeting their needs and the characteristics of a twenty-first century curriculum. Through this endeavour these children/students have engaged with the Big History narrative and themes to think critically about which images and patches are most appropriate to represent the eight thresholds of increasing complexity. They have developed an in-depth and meaningful understanding of the concept of increasing complexity including goldilocks conditions and emergent properties in the process of selection and creation of the patches. They have engaged in using multiple literacies, not only in creating and designing the quilt (calculating dimensions, sourcing information for varied texts and the quilting process itself), but have produced a narrative for a specific audience and purpose, harnessing digital technologies and multi-media in the form of a blog.

But at a completely different level, beyond the creation of the quilt itself, the connective power of Big History is demonstrated. A family in the United States created a quilt and blogged about it; based on a field of study pioneered by a British-Australian academic, located by an Australian teacher surfing the internet for presentation images, ultimately used as an example of implied Big History pedagogy presented to a group of Big History experts and enthusiasts from around the globe at a meeting in Grand Rapids Michigan. That level of interconnection in itself is quite remarkable not to mention the powerful back-story of the process of collective learning that over millennia has made these processes possible.

## Australian Big History Student Preliminary Reflections

Throughout 2012, as part of the Big History Project pilot schools program, two Australian schools trialled a secondary course in Big History for Year 9 students. Below is a selection of quotes from a group of mixed-ability Big History students. Each demonstrates a different aspect of the power of Big History as an interdisciplinary and pedagogically
empowering tool for developing critical thinking in high school stu-
dents.

I do enjoy Big History a lot. It lets me know what I am part of in the
universe. But I feel there isn't enough **evidence** to be completely depend-
able. But I really love this course; it's amazing to learn about what's out
there... Katarina

By identifying that 'there is not enough evidence to be completely
dependable' Katrina is actually making a judgement about the informa-
tion that has been placed in front of her and has been empowered and
given the flexibility to challenge the information presented.

I love Big History because it gives answers and asks great questions, for us to optimise with. It isn't like here's this, deal with it. It gives us a choice and we can ask questions for those choices... Lachlan

Lachlan is demonstrating the power of Big History to empower him
as having the ability and encouragement to ask questions rather than
feeling his role is as a receptacle to store static information and content.

I love Big History as it teaches everything I want to know and tries to answer the questions I'm seeking. I find it so extremely interesting and it's the only subject I see a **purpose in...** Dana

Dana is making a clear distinction between the enactments of Big
History as interdisciplinary and combining her knowledge, in compari-
son to disciplinary-based subjects that do not necessarily speak to her
pragmatism as a twenty-first century learner.

I enjoy Big History as it gives me a better understanding of the
**world around us...** Caitlin

Big History teaches and supports my view on history that not every-
one understands. Every subject in Big History has interested me most of
my life. Finally getting the answers to the questions I have kept bottled up
makes me feel much better and confirms that **I am part of something
much bigger...** Kayla

Both Caitlin and Kayla are reflecting the sense of connection and be-
longing that comes with being able to place themselves in the bigger
picture.

I enjoy Big History because it gives me a sense of understanding. It
brings together different opinions; beliefs and values, which together help
me, understand that things change. The main thing that I enjoy about Big
History is that it changes as new evidence is discovered changing what we
understand... Elisha
However, this quote from Elisha really encapsulates the power of Big History in developing students understanding through developing a meaningful relationship to how knowledge is built and constructed.

This paper began with a well-known quotation from Albert Einstein 'There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle'. To truly appreciate the 'miracles' that surround us in everyday life we must first be able to see them, but how? Like all things we need to be taught. Throughout the inaugural International Big History Association conference the words 'awe' and 'wonder' emanated in some form or another from lecture halls, classrooms, and over lunch and dinner conversations for days. These are not words that are often associated with student experiences of traditional curriculum models. But they can be. I believe the power of Big History lays in its ability to transform the way we see the universe, our place in it and our connection to all that surrounds us. I also believe in the transformative (Pugh et al. 2009: 3) power of Big History for a generation of school students in offering a pedagogical tool to meet their needs as learners. To teach them to appreciate and understand the interconnection of knowledge and empower them to ask important questions that cannot be answered by looking to one discipline alone. To teaching them how to make connections across the boundaries of perceived discipline-based knowledge to find meaningful answers to questions relevant to their experience of the world around them. It is through providing opportunities for learning of this type and scale that we can teach students of all types and ages, including myself, to live and view life as if everything is a 'miracle'. That is a truly empowered learner.

## References

**Australian Curriculum and Reporting Authority.** 2011. *Cross-Curriculum Priorities*. URL: http://www.acara.edu.au/curriculum/cross-curriculum-priorities.html.

**Bahr N., Bahr M., and Keogh J.** 2005. Interdisciplinarity vs. Disciplinarity: Developing Knowledge for Problem Solving in Middle Years of Schooling. *Australian Curriculum Studies Association Biennial Conference: Blurring the Boundaries, Sharpening the Focus*, 21–23 September 2005. Sunshine Coast: Australian Curriculum Studies Association, ACT, University of Sunshine Coast, Queensland. Unpublished.

**Board of Studies NSW.** 2003. *History Mandatory and Elective Courses: Years 7–10 Syllabus*. Sydney: Board of Studies NSW.
**Board of Studies NSW. 2008.** *Human Society and its Environment. Syllabuses.* URL: http://www.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/syllabus_sc/hsie.html.

**Bruner J. 1967.** *Toward a Theory of Instruction*. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

**Christian D. 2008.** *Big History: The Big Bang, Life on Earth, and the Rise of Humanity.* (Lectures). Chantilly, VA: The Teaching Company.

**Christian D. 2011.** *Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History*. 2nd ed. Berkley, CA: University of California Press.

**Collins C. 2009.** *Opening Disciplinary Doors in Studies of Society and Environment: Asking and Answering ‘Guiding Ethical Questions’. The Social Educator* 27(7): 5–12.

**Diniyoyo. 2012a.** *Big History Quilt Updates*. URL: http://saysaysamkin.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/big-history-quilt-updates.html.

**Diniyoyo. 2012b.** *Big History Quilt – Threshold 1: The Big Bang*. URL: http://saysaysamkin.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/big-history-quilt-updates.html.

**Godinho S., and Shrimpton B. 2008.** *Interdisciplinary Curriculum: A Sustainable Future or an Unattainable Vision in a Changing Educational Climate? AARE 2008 International Education Research Conference Papers*. Brisbane.

**Limerick B., and Thomas P. 1990.** *Whatever Happened to Interdisciplinarity?: A Case of Ten Years Development of Interdisciplinary Work*. Australian Association for Research in Education. URL: http://www.aare.edu.au/90pap/limer90276.txt.

**Marsh C., and Harris C. 2005.** 'Curriculum Frameworks: Who (or What) is Framing Whom?' *Proceedings of the 2005 National Biennial Conference of the Australian Curriculum Studies Association: Blurring the Boundaries, Sharpening the Focus*, pp. 1–9. Australian Curriculum Studies Association, ACT.

**Pugh K. J., Linnenbrink-Garcia L., Koskey K. L. K., Stewart V. C., and Manzey C. 2010.** *Motivation, Learning, and Transformative Experience: A Study of Deep Engagement in Science*. *Science Education* 94: 1–28.

**Shaw A. 2009.** *Education in the 21st Century*. *Ethos* 17(1): 11–17.

**Williams J. P. 1996.** *Problem Solving: A Multidisciplinary Approach to Learning Technology. Teaching and Learning Within and Across Disciplines*. *Proceedings of the 5th Annual Teaching and Learning Forum, Murdoch University* / Ed. by J. Abbott and L. Wilcoxson, pp. 171–178. Perth: Murdoch University.
## Abstract

This article provides an overview of the decisions to be made in constructing a survey Big History course, whether done individually as a sole instructor or collaboratively with a group of interdisciplinary instructors. Topics covered include choosing a title, choosing a textbook, clarifying student learning outcomes, sequencing the topics, and choosing activities and assignments. The faculty's experience at Dominican University of California is used as an example of collaboration.

**Keywords:** survey Big History course; collaboration.

Those of us who founded the International Big History Association have a dream: that of transforming the content of education worldwide by engaging students in learning Big History. For students, this story provides a framework for all their studies, a transformative understanding of history, and a means for grasping the immense challenge of our time – how to achieve sustainability. For faculty, knowing this story unites all disciplines and enables knowledge and ideas to flow freely within universities.

For faculty to begin to teach Big History, they must eventually come to the concrete task of constructing a syllabus for such a course. In this paper I want to discuss how this might be done. First, I will describe the process from the point of view of a sole faculty member attempting to teach Big History, followed by how the process looks if it is done in collaboration with a group of faculties from several disciplines.

## As a Sole Instructor

A single person within any department or discipline who wants to teach Big History must decide first whether to teach it with or without explicit permission from higher authorities. This involves whether to start a new course with a new title or to use an existing course and title. It also entails whether to construct the course in one or two semesters. If one has explicit permission from some department or interdisciplinary program, then one can use the title ‘Introduction to Big History’. If one does not have explicit permission and is in the history department, an easy route is simply to use the title ‘World History’ and add the cosmos, solar system, and evolution of life while condensing human history. Those in

Teaching & Researching Big History 328–335
science departments often use some variation of ‘Epic of Evolution’ or
‘Cosmic Evolution’ for a title. Here are further examples of titles that
have been used by Big History professors: ‘Global Past, Global Present:
From the Big Bang to Globalization’, ‘Big History from the Big Bang
to the Blackberry’, ‘Zoom: A History of Everything’, ‘Introduction to
World Civilizations’, and ‘Whole Earth History’.

A second step entails choosing a textbook or constructing a reader, if one chooses that route. Until the summer of 2013, choosing a textbook proved difficult; there was none formatted specifically as a college textbook. In August 2013, McGraw-Hill published the first one, written by David Christian, Craig Benjamin and myself, entitled *Big History: Between Nothing and Everything* (Christian et al. 2014). This book is laid out with an introduction and thirteen chapters to be covered in one semester or in two, if one wishes to expand each chapter by adding supplementary speakers and materials. Other likely books to use as texts or supplements are: Christian (2004, 2011), Brown (2007, 2013), Spier (2010), or Chaisson (2006).

The usual next step in developing a syllabus would be deciding
what the objectives, or student learning outcomes (SLOs), should be.
This crucial step is sometimes postponed to the end of syllabus design,
but tackling it near the beginning gives clarity and saves revisions.
The sequence of topics and assignments must flow from being clear
about what students are expected to do in order to demonstrate their
learning from the course.

Big History instructors commonly use SLOs such as these formu-
lated by Kevin Fernlund at the University of Missouri, St. Louis (per-
sonal communication):

1. Comprehension of the major developments in the history of the universe, and how we think about and imagine the universe, from the Big Bang to the present. Assessment: quizzes and final exam.

2. An understanding of Big History themes addressed in the course through defining, explaining, and/or analyzing them. Assessment: field exercises, reader's responses, and two logically and coherently organized essays written in university-level Standard English and crafted through a process of drafting, revising, and editing.

3. The ability to locate and evaluate appropriate secondary sources, and extract and synthesize research; additionally, students must demonstrate appropriate summarizing, paraphrasing, and quoting in accordance with standard documentation styles, for example, *The Chicago Manual of Style* or Turabian Assessment: The documentation of the two papers.

After the SLO's have been clearly stated, the sequence of topics can
be laid out over the calendar of one or two semesters. Here one has
many choices – to follow closely the textbook, to modify its pace some-
what to add one's own interests, or to devise one's own sequence of top-
ics and assign the text as it fits the topics.

In a survey of 13.8 billion years, one major question is how much
time to allocate to history before the appearance of humans and how
much after. Scientists may teach the course with humans appearing
rather briefly at the end, as befits the actual proportion of our time here.
On the other hand, world historians who focus on human history may
briefly add a few weeks of astronomy, chemistry, geology, and biology
to the beginning of their world history course.

In the new textbook, we have chosen to emphasize human history,
with a substantial portion on the cosmos, Earth, and life history. Our
textbook uses the first three chapters to describe evolution up through
the common ancestor of chimpanzees and humans. Chapter 4 covers
the development of *Homo sapiens* and the Paleolithic era, followed by
eight more chapters on human history and a final one on the future of
humans, Earth and universe. In sum, three chapters out of twelve, or
one-fourth of the total, are devoted to science, with three-fourths to hu-
man history (Christian *et al*. 2014).

At the same time, our textbook uses a device called ‘thresholds’ for
organizing the vast scales of history. We see an overall pattern of in-
creasing complexity so far, with new properties emerging at certain pe-
riods of time that we call ‘thresholds’. We view the whole of history
through eight main thresholds, namely: 1) the Big Bang; 2) birth of stars;
3) death of stars; 4) emergence of solar systems; 5) emergence of life;
6) emergence of modern humans; 7) emergence of agriculture; and
8) modern industrialization. These thresholds make sense of the story
and give students and instructors a handle on which to grasp. Of the
eight thresholds, only the last three pertain to human history. This helps
students put human history into something closer to the proper per-
spective, even as our textbook devotes multiple chapters to describing
human activities.

After sequencing the topics, the beginning Big History instructor
may decide to invite guest lecturers in areas beyond his/her own reach.
Even experienced instructors choose to do this if time and resources
allow, for it enlivens the course and expands everyone's knowledge.

After sequencing topics, an instructor is also faced with decisions
about what kind of assessment and assignments to make. These may
include assigned readings, reader's responses, quizzes, mid-term and
final exams, short and long papers, power point presentations, or other
productions. For a final, written paper many Big History instructors
have found effective an assignment called a 'Little Big History'.

This idea for this assignment originated with Esther Quaedackers in
2006-2007, as she was teaching Big History with Fred Spier at the Uni-
versity of Amsterdam. Spier came up with the name for it. In the as-
signment each student is asked to choose an everyday object that is spe-
cial and meaningful to them and to trace its development back to the
Big Bang (or from the Big Bang to the present). If using the textbook, *Big
History: Between Nothing and Everything*, this would entail taking the
chosen object through each of the eight thresholds.

Students have amazed their instructors with the range of objects they choose to write about. One high school student wrote an insightful paper about the Little Big History of Cheez-its. Students at Dominican publish their best papers in an on-line journal, 'Thresholds', which contains student essays on green tea, body art, cars, yoghurt, flip flops, iPhones, and South Korea. By offering students a choice of a topic specific and dear to them, instructors can help their students personalize and make concrete the otherwise enormous abstractions of Big History.

In designing any syllabus, one must make at least preliminary deci-
sions about how to present the material. Will the instructor lecture with
power point presentations most of the time? Will students be expected
to read the text and discuss it in class? Will students present material?
Lead discussions? Engage in other activities? These are the usual deci-
sions; they vary depending on size of class, level of students, instructors'
preferred modes, etc.

Before concluding a syllabus in Big History, one may want to con-
sider how to deal with the conflict between religious faith and scientific
information that will arise for a varying proportion of students. In many
classes a wide range of student belief systems will exist, for example,
in regard to the central idea of evolution, from little or no knowledge of
it and little or no acceptance, on the one hand, to much familiarity and
full acceptance on the other.

One can choose one of two strategies, or something in between. One
can say that there is so much content to cover in class that students can
discuss the religious and ethical issues outside of class and in other
campus venues. Or one can allocate some, or much, time for class dis-
cussion of these issues and can find ways to engage students in leading
these discussions.

However one allocates class time for these discussions, one can ex-
plain that students need to understand the Big History story as one pos-
sible origin story. It is the one that their culture is currently based on; it
provides the framework for their university studies; and it provides the
trans-disciplinary skills needed by employers – three good reasons for
knowing it. This course is designed to help them know and understand
the modern scientific origin story, but only they can decide whether
they want to believe it. One can assure them that one is not attempting
to change their religious beliefs, only to help them think about the big
questions in a more informed, nuanced way. They can reject the reality of evolution, or they can accept it and add religious beliefs to the story, as they wish. The scientific origin story will change as the quest for knowledge continues.

It may be appropriate to remind students that reflecting on the big questions of human existence is what a liberal education is about. Being exposed to new ideas that conflict with old ones is supposed to happen during the university years. These questions cannot be resolved during one or two courses; they provide a lifetime of reflection and participation in the on-going human conversation about what is real and what is really important. In a Big History class students can practice conversing with people with whom they disagree – a skill not easy to learn but a necessary one if a democratic society is to succeed.

## As an Instructor Collaborating with Others

To describe how multiple instructors can collaborate in designing a Big History survey course, I must rely on my experience at Dominican University of California, since 2010 the first university in the world to require all its freshmen to take two semesters of Big History. Since Dominican has about 275 incoming students each fall and small classes of about 20 students, it needed to have 12–18 professors from multiple disciplines prepared to teach these courses.<fnref n="1" />

In a nutshell, this happened at Dominican when the faculty decided to revamp the two courses of its Freshman Year Experience. Leading faculty members were familiar, through the university's Catholic heritage, with the call of the Catholic priest and university professor, Thomas Berry, for the story of the universe as the proper foundation of the college curriculum (Berry 1999).

Led by Mojgan Behmand, an English professor, the faculty in January of 2010 voted to implement two semesters of Big History as the common intellectual experience for all freshmen. In order to begin these courses in the fall, the administration funded a summer institute of seven days, in which the faculty could prepare itself for the challenge of teaching such material (Behmand 2012–2013).

Even before the institute, leaders made two key decisions: first, the survey course would be one semester and in the second semester students would choose a discipline of interest to them to examine through the lens of Big History. This would provide a review of Big History tied more closely to students' own interests. Second, faculty would teach the first semester's survey course from a common syllabus that they would design collaboratively at the first summer institute and would revise annually at following institutes.

<footnote n="1">¹ See the Big History website at Dominican University of California. URL: http://www.dominican.edu/academics/bighistory.</footnote>
Almost 30 people attended the first summer institute in 2010, including several librarians, one biologist and faculty from history, art history, English, religion and philosophy, women's and cultural studies. The major content of Big History was presented and discussed, along with a draft syllabus, which the participants re-worked until they could all agree to use it, with minor individual tweakings to reflect each instructor's interests and knowledge.

For the first year of instruction the Dominican faculty chose to use both Christian (2004) and Brown (2007), since neither seemed quite right – the former too advanced for many of their students and the latter too slight for a semester's work. By 2011, the faculty could use a Preliminary Edition of *Big History: Between Nothing and Everything* as a text more appropriate for its students and, as an added benefit, as a way to provide invaluable feedback to its authors for the final revisions of the first edition.

The Dominican faculty felt that it had to include some skill components, such as writing and library use, in the Big History survey course along with all the content. It revised and clarified the chosen SLO's at every summer institute; here is the 2012 version:

Students will:

1. Employ major Big History concepts and the eight Big History thresholds from the Big Bang to the present in developing a perspective that emphasizes a view of themselves as embedded in the fabric of an interconnected world. Assessment: Little Big History paper written in university-level Standard English and crafted through a process of drafting, revising, and editing.

2. Demonstrate an understanding of Big History themes addressed in the course through identifying, defining, explaining, and/or analyzing them. Assessment: a mid-term and a final exam.

3. Demonstrate the ability to locate and evaluate appropriate secondary sources, and extract and synthesize research; while summarizing, paraphrasing, and quoting in accordance to the MLA, APA, or CMS documentation styles. Assessment: two library exercises and Little Big History paper.

When laying out topics on the semester's calendar, the Dominican faculty decided to devote almost half the time to science topics – six of thirteen weeks. They condensed the time spent on covering the agrarian civilizations by sampling only some of them. The fourteenth week they devoted to review and the fifteenth to the future, a favorite part of the course for students.

At Dominican, instructors have found that many students need to engage in concrete activities in order to assimilate the abstract ideas. Since instructors have shared at summer institutes the activities they
have devised, the course now features several key common activities, such as mixing the ingredients of bread to illustrate the idea of emergent properties, circling around outside in a grassy area to re-enact the accretion of planets around the Sun, and examining plastic mini-skulls of hominines and *Homo sapiens*. Outside of class students enjoy a night of stargazing organized by the San Francisco Amateur Astronomers; this proves to be a significant experience for many who have little or no experience looking at stars.

Faculty collaboration continues to be at the heart of Dominican's program, both for learning the content of Big History and for sharing pedagogical ideas and activities. The fourth summer institute took place in June 2013; lunch meetings are held weekly in the fall semester and bi-weekly in the spring. A day's retreat usually occurs at each semester's end. The faculty has found this collaboration to be the most engaging and helpful professional experience of their careers.

## Outcomes

What do we really hope our students will take away from their Big History courses? We put down as learning outcomes something along the traditional lines that we can document – that students will be able to pass exams on a body of knowledge and that they will exhibit writing and analytical skills in a research paper.

Yet based on our teaching experience we have come to expect much more than this. We expect that their Big History course will be a transformative experience for many students, meaning that they will come out of it perceiving their everyday world, both natural and cultural, in new ways and will be able to act in new ways. Long-term assessment studies to document this transformative experience are underway at Dominican and Macquarie, but the short-term surveys and anecdotal evidence for this are already overwhelming.

Students are not the only ones affected by Big History. Instructors find that its large-scale insights change the way they teach other courses. For example, when history professor Martin Anderson taught his course, '20th Century Global History', he de-emphasized the political history and emphasized the environmental history. Many instructors feel they could hardly have taught their Big History courses without the built-in collaboration, which has made these courses for many the most enjoyable teaching experience of their career.

Even the institution itself has not remained immune to the effects of Big History. The librarians have had to learn about a new category of books and visuals. Students have begun to ask new questions in their other classes. Advisors must explain what Big History is. The staff wants to understand Big History. Dominican's president views Big History as the intellectual frontier of the twenty-first century and uses it to
help define the institution's identity. At the very least, the idea that science and the humanities can be combined into one story has become familiar across the campus.

The dream of a worldwide revolution in educational content comes true one course at a time. Although universities are bound by traditions and firmly divided by divisions and disciplines, there are always individuals in any department who by nature think holistically across the whole range of human knowledge. These individuals are gradually becoming more able to introduce large-scale, interdisciplinary courses into the curriculum as challenges from the world outside of academia demand them. Big History is the ultimate interdisciplinary course – the core of a liberal arts education in one course, featuring humans as a unified group. What could be more appropriate for today's global world?

I must conclude by saying that both scientists and historians increasingly realize that humans have only a very short time – possibly five years – to reduce drastically the CO₂ we are pumping into the atmosphere and the pollutants we are discarding into the environment, or our civilization is toast. Only a Big History survey can help us and our young people understand how we got into this dilemma and can energize us all into action.

## References

**Behmand M. 2012–2013.** Sin Boldly! Or First Year Experience ‘Big History’ in 21st Century Liberal Education. *Thresholds: A Journal of Faculty and Student Publications on Big History*. Vol. 1. URL: http://www.dominican.edu/academics/bighistory. Date accessed: 22.5.2013.

**Berry T. 1988.** The American College in the Ecological Age. *The Dream of the Earth*. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books.

**Berry T. 1999.** *The Great Work: Our Way into the Future*. New York, NY: Bell Tower/Random House.

**Brown C. S. 2007.** *Big History: From the Big Bang to the Present*. New York, NY: New Press.

**Brown C. S. 2012.** *Big History: From the Big Bang to the Present*. 2nd edition. New York, NY: New Press.

**Chaisson E. 2006.** *Epic of Evolution: Seven Ages of the Cosmos*. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.

**Christian D. 2004.** *Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History*. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

**Christian D. 2011.** *Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History*. With a New Preface edition. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

**Christian D., Brown C. S., and Benjamin C. 2014.** *Big History: Between Nothing and Everything*. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

**Spier F. 2010.** *Big History and the Future of Humanity*. Oxford, West Sussex, and Malden, MA: John Wiley & Sons.
# Cosmology, Mythology, and the Timeline of Light

John Fowler

## Abstract

This article summarizes the pedagogy and resultant insights of children formed when studying an original, integral, and stunningly artistic approach to cosmology, "The Timeline of Light". Through subsequent analysis, relationships gleaned by fifth and sixth grade students from the lessons are seen through Joseph Campbell's four functions of myth—the mystical, the cosmological, the sociological, and the pedagogical. These insights were formed by sixth grade learners over an eighteen year period at the Denison Montessori School in Denver, Colorado, a public magnet school program. Beginning with an explanation of those four functions, this paper moves to an exploration of original and traditional Montessori educational materials, student work and connections with cosmological, Platonic, Jungian, and Big History themes. As such, the paper suggests both an exemplar and initial framework for an integration of those functions as logical, experiential, and pedagogical emergents from upper elementary and middle school aged students while also providing heuristic value for all other developmental levels.

**Keywords:** elementary education, Montessori, pedagogy.

During the opening moments of the widely popular Public Broadcast series, *The Power of Myth*, journalist Bill Moyers made the following observation of a shift in meaning made by master mythologist Joseph Campbell: 'You changed the meaning of myth from the *search* for meaning to the *experience* of meaning' (Campbell and Moyers 1988: 5, author's italics). Certainly this shift is essential for adults, but perhaps even more so for elementary and middle school aged students. It is equally essential as a context and goal of my work with children and cosmology via the Timeline of Light activities. Children should *experience* meaning.

This paper derives its authority and authenticity from the experiences of 11 and 12 year old children in my upper elementary classes at the Denison Montessori School, a 460 student public magnet program in Denver, Colorado. In short, the children like those experiences and their subsequent insights. It also assumes Brian Swimme's definition of cosmology (Swimme 1996: 31) as both primary and meaningful: 'Cosmology,
though it is consonant with science, is not science. Cosmology is a wisdom tradition drawing upon not just science but religion and art and philosophy. Its principal aim is not the gathering of facts and theories but the transformation of the human'.

Originally designed to fill a relative void in the Montessori approach – the history of the universe and planet prior to the Cambrian period – the approach has been presented locally and nationally at Montessori, holistic education and environmental conferences and workshops.

The work was initially inspired by Brian Swimme and Thomas Berry's (Swimme and Berry 1992) *The Universe Story: From the Primordial Flaring Forth to the Ecozoic Era: A Celebration of the Unfolding of the Cosmos*, a remarkably integral history of our universe and our planet. Not only was the information new when I read it in 1993, but so was the perspective. Both authors insisted on a unique grammatical and ontological perspective: the reader, the author, indeed all of us, are the universe acting. This switch from the typical subject-object relationship was a shift of considerable proportions, a shift made both implicitly and explicitly throughout *The Universe Story*. For a Montessori director, *The Universe Story* clearly was a compelling addition to what Montessori called the idea of the universe (Montessori 1948), a notion that has a distinctly cosmological, trans-disciplinary and integral core. Since Montessori's death in 1952, there have been numerous scientific accretions to cosmological understanding. *The Universe Story* summarized and, more importantly, contextualized many of them. Furthermore, it addressed one of life's pressing questions, a question of which Montessori was well aware, 'What am I?' (Montessori 1948: 10), a concern very similar to the heart of Big History, 'Who am I?' (Christian 2004: 1) and the central concern of Montessori's enterprise as seen by Montessori educators and authors, Michael and D'Neil Duffy (Duffy M. and Duffy D. 2002: 4), with all seeing the question in both variations as central to a life well lived. However, rather than answering the question through a singular mode or perspective, Montessori envisioned an integration of the sciences and humanities as part of a grand cosmic story or plan (Montessori 1948). For Montessori, the perspectives gained from an interdisciplinary approach provided the context for all disciplines and explorations. Not so oddly, her pedagogy is in harmony both with Joseph Campbell's approach to the functions of myth and David Christian's vision of Big History as a 'modern creation myth' (Christian 2004: 6).

Campbell saw myth addressing four human functions (Campbell 1986: 31): the mystical, the cosmological, the sociological, and the pedagogical. Myth therefore functions in all aspects of human experience.
The first, the mystical, opens the participant to enter into a realization of
what a wonder the universe is, 'Myth opens the world to the dimension
of mystery' (Ibid.). Campbell's second function, the cosmological, em-
braces and magnifies the domain of the empirical sciences, 'showing
you what the shape of the universe is, but showing it in a way that the
mystery comes through again' (Ibid.). The third, or sociological, function
validates a certain social order; and the fourth, the pedagogical function,
is that which instructs, 'how to live a human lifetime under any circum-
stances' (Ibid.). The mythic and cosmological functions are primary, said
Campbell, for they are central to establishing a sense of awe and won-
der of opening 'mind and heart' (Campbell 1988: 18) and as presenting
nature as an 'epiphany' (Ibid.). The Timeline of Light activities are in-
tended to arouse the sense of wonder and awe inherent in the mystical
and cosmological functions that Montessori and Campbell so highly
valued, while simultaneously addressing the sociological and pedagogi-
cal functions.

Montessori took the direction of education one big step into the cosmological dimension when she established the story of the universe as central to her now world-famous approach to elementary education. Writing in 1948, she claimed (Montessori 1948: 9), 'If the idea of the universe be presented to the child in the right way, it will do more for him than just arouse his interest, for it will create in him admiration and wonder, a feeling loftier than any interest and more satisfying. The child's mind will no longer wander but can become fixed and do work'.

The following affords a brief sketch of how Campbell's four functions are welded into the Timeline of Light approach in a Montessori classroom and thus suggests an exemplar for the mythic functions as a truly integral pedagogical approach to the versions of experience that Montessori, Swimme, Campbell and Christian champion. Consequently, it affords an initial framework for Big History at the elementary and middle school levels while providing heuristic value for all of life's other developmental stages.

## Context

Before beginning, let us look at the broader context and content of the activities. The initial approach utilized 18 lessons, presenting cosmological principles through an integration of art, story, drama, mathematics, geometry, experimentation, brainstorming, poetry, and song. Thus it follows the cosmological visions of both Montessori and Swimme. While the following presentation highlights some of the earlier and therefore more foundational lessons, it does not and cannot detail the entire framework of activities and images.
The timeline itself is a striking visual presentation of the universe story as seen through my imagination and drawn by artistic friend Tim Hogan. The actual classroom timeline is a 9 feet long, 20 inches wide material and quite striking in color.

<figure><img src="image_31.png" /><figcaption>Fig. 1. The Timeline of Light</figcaption></figure>

Regardless, children do not traditionally see this interpretation until, guided by their own activity and experience, their personal story and images have begun to form, usually 11 weeks after the introductory presentation. Prior to that time the children hear stories and respond artistically, complete mathematical and geometric tasks, sing songs and have lessons introducing primary cosmological concepts: the relative size of a hydrogen atom, supernovas, stellar size, and distances between the Milky Way and our nearest neighboring galaxy. All of these concepts are then integrated in the visual presentation of the timeline. The timeline is therefore a visual presentation of a creation myth showing and suggesting all of Campbell's four mythic aspects with which the children have become familiar. Thus, the timeline's imagery and content provides a series of points of departure for various lessons, explorations and researches into geometry, chemistry, astronomy, biology, and other intellectual disciplines.

## The Mythic Functions

Jungian Anthony Stevens (Stevens 1993: 63) affords a remarkably clear and concise definition of origin myths 'as an account of human origins that accords with the knowledge prevailing at the time of the myth's emergence into consciousness', a definition compatible with Campbell's definition of mythic functions, Christian's Big History, Swimme and Berry's definition of cosmology and Montessori's vision of cosmic education. Far from myth as a preliminary to science, this definition assumes current science as integral to mythology. Christian provides an important complement to Steven's definition with a simple and important reminder (Christian 2004: 11), 'In their day all creation myths offered workable maps of reality, and that is why they were believed. They made sense of what people knew'. All of the foregoing thinkers are
united in their desire to have children and adults know that we are now
able to make numerous new connections. Contemporary cosmology,
therefore, provides content for an emergent more internally cohesive
and participatory map of reality.

The Mystical Function

Why is there something rather than nothing? Its corollary then leaps
out: How, exactly, did that happen? That is *the* mystery of creation my-
thologies. Imagine your eleven year old self, sitting with a small group
invited – in the grand tradition of ‘once upon a time’ common to chil-
dren throughout spoken history – to explore the mystery.

It is impossible to imagine nothing at all and impossible to imagine
a time before time. The great mystery of creation, the time when
time began, has called throughout the ages wherever great thought
occurred. This mystery is ever with us, ever challenging us to look
more deeply into life's well of experience in hopes that we, like
some likely prospector, find the gold we speak (Fowler 2000: 49).

Through this type of invitation and subsequent introduction children
are called to the great questions and their possible solution as if they mat-
ter. Montessori saw the import of this open-ended approach to discovery
and wrote (Montessori 1948: 7), ‘No matter what we touch, an atom, or
a cell, we cannot explain it without knowledge of the wide universe. What
better answer can be given to these questers of knowledge?’ In a world
trivialized by the media and diversions too numerous to count, children
at Denison have leapt to an opportunity for deeper contemplation, as if
to say, ‘Wow! You thought about this stuff, too?’ and thereby establish
a deeper rapport and communion with their life, their universe, and
their teacher. After hearing an integrated mythic/poetic/scientific story
of the creation of the universe, children have responded both artistically
and verbally.

The children frequently comment that the story and the setting cre-
ate a feeling of life, of a living universe of which the children are part,
and a desire for more. ‘I realize how important it is to have life… the
music created a feeling of life’, said Alondra (Fowler 2000: 60–61) and
added that she desired more. ‘I felt desperate for more. I don’t know
what it is that I wanted. I just wanted. I was just desperate’. In that same
vein, Monica once offered, ‘I feel relaxed, surprised and incomplete.
Relaxed from the music and the darkness, surprised how you said it
and the fact that I didn’t know, and incomplete because you didn’t fin-
ish the story. Can we do it again?’
These youthful utterances are strongly suggestive of an awareness at least as old as Plato's eros as detailed in the *Symposium*. The distinguished Oxford Platonist, Francis Cornford interpreted eros as 'the single force or fund of energy' (Cornford 1967: 71), whose objects range from the sensual to the good and the divine. Certainly the children's desires suggest Swimme's allurement – the attraction... the birthplace of philosophy... philo-sophia, the love of wisdom; furthermore, 'love begins as allurement... as attraction' (Swimme 1984: 45), Swimme's Thomas says to a star struck youth. If children do not have that love of learning, that desire for more, there is little reason to go on other than obedience and an adherence to the do-good stereotype, a posture which, after 30 years in the classroom, seems a poor substitute for that love offered by Diotima in Plato's *Symposium* and the allurement suggested by Swimme's sagely Thomas.

The last and in many ways the most striking evidence of the mystical function offered here is Julio's, a child of modest background, whose summary of his initial experience has stayed with me for well more than a decade. It is particularly noteworthy that he was not a particularly religious child when he said, 'I felt like I was there when the universe was being born. And I felt like I was born again at that very same time' (Fowler 2000: 62).

## The Cosmological Function

Campbell's cosmological function rests iron dense at the timeline's pedagogical core. It is essential that children *experience* 'the shape that the universe is, but [by] showing it in a way that the mystery comes through' (Campbell 1988: 31). For example, let us explore a hydrogen atom. Shortly after telling two stories of the creation of the universe and the formation of galaxies and hence, but briefly, quarks and the first hydrogen and subsequent helium atoms, the children are invited to physically walk through the dimensions of a hydrogen atom on our school's baseball diamond. Here is a description of their *experience*, originally modeled on Packard's description (Packard 1994: 115-117).

The children are led outside with barely a spoken word. A grain of sand is dramatically gathered, examined, and placed on a red bandana on top of the home plate of our baseball diamond with, again, barely a spoken word. We then begin a slow walk away from the grain of sand, maintaining silence or at least quiet while slowly walking an approximate radius and then arc using that grain of sand as center of our invisible closed curve. The group pauses where the actual radius begins some three hundred feet away from the grain of sand, approximately
the length of a football field. As we walk in that silence the children have a chance to experience space. Occasionally I look curiously and longingly back towards that very soon invisible grain of sand.

After we have reached a point some three hundred feet distant from our now invisible center, the children are told, 'That center is the nucleus of a hydrogen atom, the first atom formed in the history of the universe. We are as far away from it as an electron would be (and I pick up the smallest available particle of dirt) in a hydrogen atom is from its nucleus. It orbits at this distance, more or less, in all directions' and I point up down and at all manner of varied angles. 'The question is ... how does the electron know where to go?' This always provokes a variety of answers, but they always seem to center on a type of communication between the two tiny, nay invisible, sub-atomic particles. The key point, however, is the great mystery that atoms, which underlie all that we see, feel, touch, taste, smell, and hear, are so full of empty space. This impressionistic introduction helps the children begin to understand the construction of the physical cosmos as both a way that the mystery Campbell described, and the wonder that Montessori predicted, is fueled. A subsequent story/lesson helps them realize that even though atoms themselves have never been seen but their effects have been recognized.

The Timeline of Light approach is also rife with mathematical challenges and concepts. The notion of infinity, so central to cosmology, is introduced geometrically, when the children construct models of infinity within limits, a standard geometric approach within the Montessori Method as indicated in the following charts.

<figure><img src="image_32.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_33.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_34.png" /><figcaption>Fig. 2. Art by the author</figcaption></figure>
The first image of infinity within limits is a simple construction, effected by bisecting the side of a square and then connecting the mid-points in successive fashion. Fig. 2, the above middle chart is a construction that involves the bisection of the side of a square and then a line segment equal to the length of the side of the original square used as both diagonals of the resultant next square. The final chart utilizes an extention of the previous principal into a potentially infininte progression. The experience of constructing these patterns is very engaging and meaningful to the children.

In addition to these geometrical constructions, the approach also uses mathematical problems to determine the approximate age of the universe, the appropriate exponential expression for the time it takes a photon to cross the nucleus of an atom and the range of their teacher's age expressed as a function of the same. Here is a sampling from a challenging set of questions (Fowler 2000: 100-101):

1. The universe is only seconds old, approximately $10^{18}$ seconds old. How many years old does this make the universe?...

5. Many of you have asked me how old I am. Well, I won't be exact but I am older than $10^9$ seconds. How many years is that?

7. At the other extreme we have the very large. The largest distance we can presently calculate is the radius of the universe. As you can see, the general belief is that the universe is round, like a giant sphere. We take the radius to be $10^{28}$ centimeters. How many meters is that? Kilometers? Miles?

Discovering the macro and micro principles and aspects of the universe in this way is both challenging and exhilarating and the children love it, even though not all children answer all of the problems correctly. Nevertheless, the search for the fruitful approach is indeed half of the challenge and the children learn greatly through the process.

In addition to a mathematical emphasis, various properties of light are explored, reflection, refraction, the inverse square law for change in surface coverage, and an initial classification of the chemical elements. While story and experiment are used, both are made are contextualized in the universe, and thereby made more relevant and interesting because they are part of a much larger process that strikes the imagination's ability to wonder.

## The Sociological and Pedagogical Functions

These two points of consciousness are implicit throughout the course of demonstrations, questions, projects and activities, and derive their strength from both the mystical and cosmological dimensions. As the timeline's imagery and activities address the first 3.6 billion years of
earth's history, the following cosmological and biological points are made clear: 1) the universe comes from *light*, a declaration rich in marvelous scientific, literary, and poetic connotations; 2) vis-à-vis the primordial act of photosynthesis, that light is captured and serves as *primal food*; 3) the bacteria that utilize that food *cooperate* with each other and their environment at a phenomenal rate and degree, sharing their collective memory through DNA transferred from bacterium to bacterium when in close proximity; 4) and, finally, because of that cooperation they evolved, shared, *created complexity*, and eventually transformed their non-nucleated bodies into a nucleated one which allowed for increased growth and communal richness through a diversity greater than possible at the previous bacterial level of organization. This and other examples of cooperation and diversity provide ecological and moral guidelines as these characteristics are presented and seen not merely as human constructs but as patterns necessarily inherent in the evolution of the planet.

So throughout the five or so months of lessons and activities stemming from the timeline, certain sociological and pedagogical implications become ever clearer. If humans follow the path of the universe and the planet of which we are part, it seems wise to cooperate whenever possible, share to the greatest possible degree, and utilize the collective wisdom of the entire cosmological process and learn from the diverse processes which have been essential to the emergence of life on our planet. Accordingly, the societal and the pedagogical merge. The now cosmologically aware child becomes an embodiment of an expanded and better understood idea of the universe, the planet, and its relationships.

A very short story and a child's poem highlight a possible outcome of this process. The story told to the children is entitled 'The Sacrifice of the Sun':

> Each second the Sun gives away four million tons of its helium for light and energy. It has been giving away almost this much for nearly all of its 4.6 billion years life! Our planet uses this radiant energy as the essential stuff of life, the food for photosynthesis. We store it in our bodies and honor it in the glory of each new dawn. This incredible give away of the Sun is at the very center of our life on earth. Without it we would not be here.

Inspired by this brief message, Tara responded with a theme seen frequently, but seldom so poetically, over the years. Let her words conclude the body of this text.
The Giver

Light
Expanding, Radiant,
Rushing, Giving, Receiving.
It burns in all of us,
The Giver.

Concluding Thoughts

Other connections, other thinkers, can easily be drawn into this tale, to
support and amplify its messages. Ken Wilber, Jungian archetypes, Ein-
stein, Charles Darwin, great poets à la Whitman, come first to mind but
surely there are so many more. All of them follow as an easy deduction,
for after all, this work is about the creation of everything.

As such, it is, as creation mythologies have always been, both psy-
chologically and scientifically, a starting point, and a door to under-
standing experience. More importantly, as Tara's poetic insight sug-
gests, there is reason for hope that this timeline will serve the primary
integral function of mythology as described by Campbell, 'Indeed the
first and most essential service of a mythology is this one, of opening
the mind and heart to the utter wonder of all being' (Campbell 1986: 18).
That experience has always been a great place to start any exploration or
path of discovery. To explicitly or implicitly offer experiences that lead
to the union of mind and emotion, is a goal of all true mythologies, all
big stories which have shaped cultures and epochs in both conscious
and unconscious ways. Then, once both mind and heart are engaged,
a new focus can be attained. As Montessori proclaimed, 'intelligence can
become whole and complete because of the vision of the whole that has
been presented to him, and his interest spreads to all for all are linked
and have their place in the universe on which his mind is centered'
(Montessori 1948: 9). Hence, a mythology that goes beyond the local folk
ideas and into the cosmic idea suggested by a non-sectarian scientific
perspective can take both a cultural and psychological center stage.
'The principle can now, however, be developed on a scientific plan
and be made far more attractive'... 'modern and complete' (Montes-
sori 1948: 10). Hence, the promise of myth, the pedagogical vision of
Montessori, the modern cosmological insight, and the direction of big
history now have a model and a common point of light from which to
depart.
References

**Campbell J. 1986.** *The Inner Reaches of Outer Space: Metaphor as Myth and Religion.*
New York: Harper Collins.

**Campbell J., and Moyers B. 1988.** *The Power of Myth*. New York, NY: Doubleday.

**Christian D. 2004.** *Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History*. Berkley, CA: University of California Press.

**Cornford F. 1967.** *The Unwritten Philosophy and Other Essays*. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

**Duffy M., and Duffy D. 2002.** *Children of the Universe: Cosmic Education in the Montessori Elementary Classroom*. Holidaysburg, PA: Parent Child Press.

**Fowler J. 2000.** *Cosmology and Children: A Phenomenological Study of the Timeline of Light*. Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Dissertation Services.

**Montessori M. 1948.** *To Educate the Human Potential*. Madras: Kalakshtra Publications.

**Packard E. 1994.** *Imagining the Universe: A Visual Journey*. New York, NY: Berkeley Publishing Company.

**Stevens A. 1993.** *The Two Million Year Old Self*. College Station, TX: Texas A & M University Press.

**Swimme B. 1984.** *The Universe is a Green Dragon*. New York, NY: Penguin.

**Swimme B. 1996.** *Hidden Heart of the Cosmos: Humanity and the New Story*. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books.

**Swimme B., and Berry T. 1992.** *The Universe Story: From the Primordial Flaring Forth to the Ecozoic Era - A Celebration of the Unfolding of the Cosmos*. San Francisco: Harper.
## Abstract

Big History Beads are strings of beads where each bead represents a chronological event in the 13.8 billion year span of our epic journey from the Big Bang to now. Big History beads are a flexible, effective pedagogical tool that supplies a kinesthetic teaching style. Teaching using Big History beads allows many of the more difficult concepts in the field of Big History to be conveyed in ways that are memorable and engaging for students of a wide range of ages. With few subjects as well positioned as Big History is to convey to students the connections between the past, present, and future, a Big History bead set provides an overview of the past that connects students to both the past and future. This paper also supplies information, resources, and descriptions to explore this teaching method, while still leaving substantial room for new innovations.

**Keywords:** kinesthetic, active learning, pedagogical tool, Big History Beads.

## 1. Introduction

Big History beads are a string of beads in which each bead represents a chronological event in the 13.8 billion year span of Big History, which can be used as a teaching method. As with any class, the amount of learning in a Big History class is strongly affected by the pedagogies used. Because Big History classes face the added challenge of teaching concepts in a wide range of disciplines, as well as difficult concepts like long-term patterns and extremely large spans of time and distance, these issues are even more challenging than they are in classes on many other subjects. Due to the need for effective pedagogical methods in education as a whole, extensive work on how students learn has resulted in many different learning theories (Joyce et al. 1997). Of these learning theories, the idea of learning styles has been extensively explored (Hawk and Shah 2007: 1–19).

Many different learning style models are available, so sorting through and understanding all of them can be a daunting task. A detailed review of many of these models, including the most popular systems, has been made (Coffield et al. 2004). Though many learning style models exist, a common theme among many of them is the idea that
people learn and teach in different ways, which can be named and clas-
sified. Early work focused on the idea that teaching is most effective
when the teaching style matches the preferred style of the learner
(known as the ‘meshing hypothesis’). The meshing hypothesis itself is
poorly supported by research (Pashler et al. 2008: 105–119; Massa et al.
2006: 321–336), and many problems are associated with relying heavily
upon the meshing hypothesis, despite its popular and often unques-
tioned acceptance. Nonetheless, recent studies have shown that incor-
porating more than one teaching method in the same classroom does
help reach those of various learning styles as compared to classes using
a single method (Coffield et al. 2004). For these reasons, ways of supply-
ing various teaching styles are needed in Big History. Of the many mod-
els which have attempted to develop categories of learning/teaching
methods, one of the most prevalent learning models in both schools and
in business is Fleming's VARK model. Fleming's VARK model gives us
the widely known learning/teaching styles of Visual, Auditory,
Read/write, and Kinesthetic (Fleming et al. 1992: 137–155). Recent mod-
els, such as Jackson's Hybrid model, have more empirical support (Jack-
son et al. 2009: 283–312) and also often include kinesthetic and sensory
elements in their learning models. Visual, auditory, and read/write teach-
ing styles are commonly incorporated in most classroom teaching envi-
ronments, especially with the growth of the use of visual media. How-
ever, kinesthetic teaching methods are often difficult to incorporate into
the average classroom, and Big History classes are no different. Clickers
are perhaps the closest many classrooms come to including kinesthetic
teaching styles, and by themselves do little to provide actual kinesthetic
learning.

The challenges of teaching Big History's difficult concepts have been
addressed in a number of ways. Examples of this include the visual and
verbal analogies of scaling the time for a commercial jet to fly across well
known distances on Earth, then using this same travel rate to compare
travel times to different locations in the Solar System, Milky Way Galaxy,
etc., in David Christian's Big History class (Christian et al. 2005: 55),
the visualization of time using Chronozoom by Saekow and Alvarez
(Saekow et al. 2012), and Carl Sagan's Cosmic Calendar (Sagan 1980).
These useful methods supply powerful resources for visual, auditory, and
read/write teaching styles. The construction of Big History beads is a kin-
esthetic method that can complement these other methods with a hands-
on approach that is easily accessible in most Big History classrooms. In
addition to this benefit when considering learning styles, the flexibility of
Big History beads also supplies additional approaches when consid-
ering other entire learning theories. In particular, Big History beads may
be well suited to more participatory methods, such as Active Learning
in a Constructivist learning theory.

## 2. Big History Beads

As a pedagogical method, Big History beads are simply a string of beads in which each bead represents a chronological event in the 13.8 billion year span of Big History. From this simple concept, teachers have many flexible options for how they set up Big History Beads in their classroom. Events are usually represented by beads of various shapes and colors, while 'spacer beads' (smaller beads of a uniform size and shape, though often with varied color) are often used between the event beads. These spacer beads can represent other information as detailed below. The basic concept of Big History beads can be adjusted in many ways to fit the situation in which it is being used. For instance, the size (and hence level of detail) of the set of Big History beads can be adjusted to fit the age of the student, ranging from a simple set of 20 or fewer events (beads) to a very detailed set of dozens or hundreds of events (appropriate for college level), as well as being adapted to many different class structures. Big History beads can also be adapted to classes on 'Little Big Histories' - focused on sections of time smaller than the full 13.8 billion years to link a specific subject to larger trends in Big History. These could cover the solar system (~5 billion years), vertebrate life (~500 million years), animal tool use from archerfish to computers, or other subjects.

## 3. Teaching Using Big History Beads

Big History beads are a flexible pedagogical tool that can be adapted to many different class situations. The ability to adjust the overall size and resulting detail of a set of Big History beads allows them to be used in classes of all grade levels, from elementary school age through adult education. This discussion is mostly written with high school to college level instructors in mind. While no formal studies of Big History Bead teaching effectiveness have been done, student and teacher feedback has been positive. In particular, they have been seen to work well in less formal teaching situations, like workshops. It will be interesting to see which aspects are most effective in large classes.

### A. Small Group and Individual Instruction

The possible variations help Big History beads adapt to many dif-
ferent classroom settings, including teaching in groups or with individ-
ual projects. Group work aids retention by encouraging students to dis-
cuss both the events in Big History as well as why or how each chosen
bead represents that event, as well as encouraging students to work to-
gether to select beads. Students often report that their discussions and
collaborations with other students are a significant part of their learning
(Jaques 1991), and the personal element of explaining their reasons for
choosing a given bead can help students feel connected and invested in
their class group. Further, allowing (or encouraging) students to include
beads for themselves and for immediate or important Ancestors can
increase their personal attachment to the Big History bead set (in addi-
tion to helping see their inclusion in the long term trends of Big His-
tory). Either the construction of a single set of Big History beads for each
group, or a set for each individual can be conducted in a small group
setting. If groups are not used, Big History bead sets can be constructed
as individual projects.

B. Timing and Use of Big History Bead Sets

Bead sets made by college students can be a project due at the end of class or have required additions as each section of Big History is covered in class, in order to foster the pacing of study and preventing rushed completion at the end of the semester. A common question asked in class seems to be 'will this be on the test?' Instead of being a distraction, this focus on the test can be utilized with Big History beads by allowing students to bring their Big History bead set to the test. This encourages students to not just study the material but to learn to associate important concepts and events with their Big History beads. As an effective, personal, convenient, and permanent study aid, a set of Big History beads can be used for study in many situations outside of a typical study environment, such as while a student is riding the subway to class. Many students put extra effort into their set of Big History beads to make them not just useful, but beautiful as well, showing a high level of student engagement. A Big History bead set enhances long-term retention because students can keep and refer to their Big History bead string years after the class is over.

**4. Big History Bead Planning – Main Concepts**

As with any teaching tool, the most important step is planning what one
intends to accomplish with the chosen pedagogy. The flexibility of Big
History beads allows their use as a tool to convey a wide range of ideas,
including the main ideas important for the specific class in which they are
being used. As such, beginning with laying out of the main concepts for
the class (especially those which are often a challenge to clearly convey)
keeps the bead sets focused on the goals of the class. For instance, for
a Big History class, several concepts are characteristic of Big History, and
thus likely to be important, including connecting the past to the future,
understanding different scales of time and distance, depicting accelera-
tion, understanding increasing maximum complexity, exploring common
processes like competition and cooperation, and connecting cases of con-
vergence and interrelation, among others (details on how these can be
represented are given below). Big History beads have been used under
many names, including ‘Universe Story Beads’, ‘Great Story Beads’,
a ‘Cosmala’, and other names.

A. Connecting the Past and the Future

Few subjects are as well positioned as Big History is to convey to students the connections between the past, present, and future, and this is especially true when an overview of the past can be seen using a set of Big History beads. In addition to showing the relevance of Big History in today's world, this can also increase student engagement by helping students see their place in Big History, connecting the past and future. Big History beads can help a student see their own presence in Big History by including beads to represent some recent Ancestors, as well a bead or beads for themselves and/or event in their lifetimes. Long term trends can be seen not just as operating in the past, but as clues to how they might operate in the future, and creating a string of Big History beads can help students imagine how those trends might affect and be affected by human choices today.

B. Different Scales of Time and Depicting Acceleration

Big History beads are usually arranged chronologically (with the Big
Bang at one end, proceeding chronologically to the other end, often rep-
resenting today or the future). Many sets of Big History beads simply
present event beads one after another, separated by uniform sets of
spacer beads. However, some Big History bead sets adjust spacer beads
(or other features) to represent lengths of time. If lengths of time are
represented, then a set of Big History beads will likely show that events
have been accelerating.

For instance, if the Big History bead set is constructed with a con-
stant value to the spacer beads (where each bead represents, say, 50 mil-
lion years, giving 274 spacer beads), then events like the appearance of
mammals, primates, hominines, humans, agriculture, cities, and writing
are bunched together in closer proximity towards the end, while spans
of dozens of spacer beads without event beads exist in the time earlier
than five billion years ago. These linear sets of Big History beads thus
give an overall feel for the comparative time spans involved, along with
the increasing rate of new events as today is approached. One example
of a linear set of Big History Beads is Kyle Bagnall's Little Big History
set of beads, which represents only the most recent 35,000 years of the
history of Michigan, with each spacer bead representing 50 years. However, this same property (of bunching many events towards the end of the bead set) is probably why linear sets of beads are not the most common.

Conversely, lengths of time can be depicted in ways that are not constant by using spacer beads of varying colors – such as: one blue spacer bead represents 100 million years, while one red spacer bead represents ten years, etc. Though bead sets constructed in this way do not show the acceleration of change in quite as striking a way, they nonetheless show the acceleration, once the drastic difference in spacer bead value is pointed out. A set of Big History beads with non-constant spacer bead value can have a very large difference in spacer bead value from one end to the other, going from perhaps a billion years per spacer bead to as little as one year or less per spacer bead. In sets like this, the enormity of deep time can be shown by pointing out what the total length would be if only the shortest time value per spacer bead was used, with enough spacer beads to add up to 13.8 billion years. For instance, if a spacer bead value of 5 years per spacer bead is used at the most recent end, and a typical spacer bead size is 3 mm, then:

13,800,000,000 yrs/5 years/bead = 2,760,000,000 beads,
2,760,000,000 beads × 0.003 m/bead = 8,280,000 meters,
or 5,134 miles (similar to the radius of the Earth at 6,400 miles).

Clearly, that is too long to make a practical Big History bead set! This is an illustration that many students can visualize easily.

Though rare, very short timescales can be represented by using the number of spacer beads as a negative exponent. Thus, the time of the formation of hadrons in the Big Bang can be represented following six spacer beads, representing that time $10^{-6}$ seconds after the Big Bang, etc.

### C. Increasing Complexity

Another important concept in a Big History course is the increase in maximum complexity over time (while the average complexity might not increase, the complexity of the most intricate entities generally does increase). This can be represented by a marker (a special type of bead or other indicator) denoting beads that represent the most intricate being or system at their time. With beads marked this way, one can easily observe that these 'most complex entities' become progressively more intricate and interconnected as one moves forward in time along the Big History bead set.

### D. Competition, Cooperation, and Crisis as Evolutionary Drivers

The relative importance of competition, cooperation, and response to a crisis in driving natural selection is debated among scholars today. An example of competition (which is often misunderstood by the public
as the main or only driver in evolution) is the evolution of taller and taller trees to obtain light in a forest. An example of cooperation is the evolution of chloroplasts in plants from incorporated algae, benefitting both entities. A crisis can foster either or both of these, as well as having other effects. For example, the oxygen crisis around 2.4 billion years ago triggered many changes through competition and cooperation as well as wiping out large numbers of organisms at the time of the impact. These various factors can all be included in a Big History bead set to highlight their roles in evolution. This also makes it easy for the instructor to ensure that he or she is not unconsciously emphasizing one of these more than originally intended. One way to show these different drivers is to have a type of bead (e.g., a small round green bead) to designate times when a given driver (e.g., cooperation) was important and to string a bead of that type next to the event that was driven by it.

### E. Convergence, Interrelation, Formation, and Discovery

Convergence and interrelation across large scales are often important concepts in a Big History class, and Big History beads offer useful ways to convey these two concepts. Because they both often require comparisons across great distances and times, Big History beads help them to be visualized by allowing disparate entities to be simultaneously seen in context.

Convergence is commonly seen in biology in the form of evolutionary convergence, where two evolutionary paths lead to similar superficial features due to a common environment. Perhaps, the most commonly used example of evolutionary convergence is the comparison of the outer forms of a dolphin and a shark. Although their most recent common Ancestor (MRCA) is more distant than, say, the MRCA shared by a dolphin and a cow, their outer forms are similarly streamlined and finned due to their mutual aquatic habitat. Big History beads allow this concept to be both demonstrated (by, e.g., having similar beads for both sharks and dolphins) and also greatly extended to areas outside of biological evolution. Similar beads could link other cases of convergence, such as the formation of similar tribute-taking agricultural societies on the separated continents of the Americas vs. Asia or the independent formation of Earthlike planets in multiple solar systems.

Big History beads also can show interrelations that can be cumbersome to convey otherwise. For instance, in studying the conquest of the Americas during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Big History beads link disparate causes that are otherwise confined to separate academic departments. At that time, a significant part of the Conquista-dors' mission was to find gold for Spain – much of which was needed to
fund the religious wars (linking to the beads for the rise of religions and the Protestant reformation). Why were the Americas geographically separate allowing them to be suddenly 'found'? This can be answered by seeing the bead for the breakup of Pangaea 200 million years ago. Why were there life forms simple enough to be transmitted (diseases)? This can be answered by looking back to the bead for the earliest life forms, over 3.5 billion years ago. Why did metals such as silver and gold exist in the first place? This can be answered by looking to the bead for supernova nucleosynthesis, over 5 billion years ago. These and many other examples can be used to illustrate that many, even most, historical events require the interrelation of factors born in very different times, which each often fall under different classical academic disciplines. If desired, the beads relevant to a given chosen later event can be linked by a common color, small adjacent bead, or another mnemonic.

If the focus of the class includes the human discovery of various phenomena or features of our Universe, then beads for the initial formation of the feature can be linked to the discovery of that feature. An example could be similar phosphorescent beads for the original formation of radioactive elements in supernovae over 10 billion years ago, and the study of radioactivity by Marie Curie around 1900 CE.

Examples of many of these methods of representing major concept information in Big History bead sets are shown in Fig. 1. 'Example Section of a Big History Bead Set'.

## F. Including Additional Concepts

Though Big History beads can be used to convey many concepts, the concepts central to a Big History class can be chosen and planned before other aspects of using Big History beads as a pedagogical tool are considered. Other types of information that can be shown using Big History beads are explored below. The relative importance of the various concepts needs to be kept in mind, as trying to include too many concepts can become too complicated to learn all of them. In all of the cases available at this time, only a few main concepts were used in constructing a set of Big History Beads, avoiding excessive complexity. Future uses of Big History Beads may show examples of balancing complexity vs. simplicity, as well as new ways to show Big History concepts clearly.

## 5. Big History Bead Set Components

After the main concepts to be conveyed are developed, a more direct planning of the Big History bead set can be done. Building on the basic concepts of the class, an overall timeline can be planned, with the overall size of the Big History bead set in mind. While the specific items in
each timeline can be left to each student, items can be picked from the
many timelines available in Big History resources, websites, and Big His-
tory bead set timelines available online (given in the Resources Section).
The timeline, with the list of events to be represented, should be built
around the events and methods for conveying the main concepts identi-
fied earlier. From observation of people during the construction of Big
History bead sets, it seems to be important to first identify major concepts
and develop a timeline before choosing (or even seeing) beads. This is to
avoid the inclusion of an event simply to include an attractive bead. After
all, a Big History bead set is made to convey information, not to collect
attractive beads.

Information can be encoded in a Big History bead set in a number of
ways. Because the main types of beads in most Big History bead sets are the
event beads (representing events) and the spacer beads (to help separate
the event beads, as well as sometimes convey additional information), both
of these types can be constructed to contain information. Of course, packing
many details into a set of Big History beads is often constrained by the
availability and cost of the beads.

A. Event Beads

Each of the event beads represents a given event in the Big History bead set. As a result, the event beads are often the most important beads – the focus of the Big History bead set. With the events chosen earlier, the search begins for a bead to represent the chosen event. The chosen event bead can contain information in color, markings, writing, size, shape, composition, and special attributes.

Color can be used to link event beads to others of the same colors
(as described above in the 'Main Concepts' section), to designate a gen-
eral type or class of event (such as, green shaded beads for any plant-
related events or black beads to represent mass extinctions), or many
other connections. Markings in addition to the background color can be
either present when the bead is obtained or added with durable media.
These markings can graphically show concepts associated with the bead
(e.g., a bead for the publication of the Origin of Species may contain
a branching design similar to a phylogenic tree). Abbreviated can add
specific information that would be difficult to represent with a simple
design. For instance, 'Hm Mts' can be written on a bead for the rise of
the Himalayan Mountains, and others. Similarly, beads giving a date or
geologic era boundaries can bear a number, letter, or word for that time
(such as 'Permian', '299 mya', or 'P').

If a Big History bead set has enough beads that are linked by some
conceptual connections (such as the linking of the stellar nucleosynthe-
sis of precious metals with the invention of money) to exceed the num-
ber of convenient colors/shapes or other linking features, then numbers
or letters written on the linked beads is an option with nearly unlimited potential. Size or shape can also be used to link beads, or these can be used as part of the mnemonics associated with each event bead. For instance, a rectangular bead can represent the evolution of plant cells, which are often rectangular.

Information can also be encoded by composition and special attributes. After all, every bead has to be made of some material. Examples include a bead of an iron/nickel alloy to represent the solidification of earth's iron/nickel core, a bead for the first coral made from some of that early coral (fossilized), a bead for the Cretaceous extinction made from tektite (rock made during a meteor impact), or beads made from rock from specific locations or time periods. Special attributes include other properties of the bead, such as a change in color upon exposure to ultraviolet light (used to represent the formation of our ozone layer), phosphorescence (mentioned earlier in the Main Concepts Section), a tiny, working flute representing the first construction of musical instruments more than 30,000 years ago as well as other ideas.

In addition to the main concepts of the Big History course, any of the above methods can be used to teach additional important concepts. Otherwise difficult to grasp concepts in biology, such as the founder effect, sexual selection, evolutionary surplus, co-evolution, and the red queen's race can all be represented in Big History beads.

The founder effect – where a small founder population leads to a loss of alleles and possibly speciation – can be coupled with adaptive evolutionary radiations following extinction events. In those cases, small populations may survive, carrying a reduced gene pool. On a Big History bead set, it can be observed how often evolutionary radiations follow mass extinctions or other events which may lead to founder situations.

Sexual selection can be shown both by instances of sexual selection (such as the often-used peacock example), as well as by including a bead for the advent of sexual reproduction. This gap between the first sexual reproduction and the earliest fossilized signs of sexual selection can open discussions about what factors are needed for sexual selection, the low frequency of fossils and fossilizable traits, whether or not sexual selection in species like the tuatara are strong evidence for older sexual selection, and so on.

The longer spans of time conveyed by Big History beads help in teaching the concept of evolutionary surplus. Because natural selection (and hence evolution itself) prepares offspring for the conditions that their parents lived in, it is a 'lagging' force for change. Especially in rapidly changing environments, this can result in organisms which better
fit the past environment than the current environment. Features that were selected for in the previous environment can be helpful, detrimental, or neutral in the current environment. A striking example of this includes the pronghorn antelope's ability to run at speeds of up to 50 mph or more, far faster than any current predators in North America. This speed could be an evolutionary surplus, left over from an earlier time when this speed was needed to escape megafaunal predators (Byers 1998: 318). A contrasting example can be found in the dodo, which evolved in an environment without predators to fly from, and was unable to flee fast enough to escape when discovered by humans. These cases can both be described as having an evolutionary surplus, positive in the case of the pronghorn, and negative in the case of the dodo. Selection, coupled with mutation, drives all evolutionary surpluses toward zero given enough time (though a sufficiently negative evolutionary surplus will result in extinction before that can happen, as in the case of the dodo). In the case of an evolutionary surplus resulting in a phenotype, which does not yield a large difference in selection, mutations over time will still remove the surplus, as in the case of the GUGLOP gene in primates (Nishikimi et al. 1988: 842–846) or the many olfactory genes in whales (Shubin 2008: 146). Big History beads allow many cases of environmental change followed by evolutionary change to be surveyed at the same time, making the concept of evolutionary surplus easier to see.

Often, an organism's environment includes significant interaction with another species. In these cases, the evolution of the first organism is an environmental change to the second species, resulting in evolution in that second species, which in turn causes evolution in the first species, and so on. This co-evolution between two species can often be represented in a single bead, both for cooperative cases (such as the co-evolution of bees and flowers or the co-evolution of fruit and fruit dispersers), as well as non-cooperative cases (such as a Red Queen's Race between predators and prey or a parasite and host). Similarly, the evolutionary situation where one member of a co-evolving pair of species goes extinct (a 'ghost of evolution' [Barlow 2000: 12], such as the pronghorn example above) can be shown with a descriptive bead.

Examples of many of these methods of representing concept information in event beads are shown in Fig. 1 'Example Section of a Big History Bead Set'.

## B. Spacer Beads

Additional information can be represented by spacer beads, as described above. Because spacer beads are often added to separate the larger event beads anyway, using them to encode additional information need not add to the overall size of the Big History bead set.
The small size of space beads usually means that information is en-
coded by their size and/or color. A color not used to represent time can
be used for geologic time periods or lineages. For instance, if colors in
order of the spectrum (r.o.y.g.b.i.v.) are used to represent successive time
periods or time values, then a white spacer bead on either side of a bead
with a letter can show the boundary between geologic time periods
(such as a white spacer bead on either side of a bead with a 'D' at the
start of the Devonian). Similarly, a chosen lineage can be made easier to
follow by putting another color spacer bead (perhaps a clear spacer
bead) on either side of any event bead representing member of that
lineage. The lineage leading to humans is probably chosen most often,
but this approach works just as well for any other extant or extinct spe-
cies. Examples of many of these methods of representing concept infor-
mation in spacer beads are shown in Fig. 1.

<figure><img src="image_35.png" /><figcaption>Fig. 1. Example Section of Big History bead set</figcaption></figure>

Fig. 1 shows several of the ways of encoding information. A – event bead flanked by clear spacer beads, indicating an Ancestor of humans – in this case the first mammal to produce milk. B – event bead for co-evolution of fruit and fruit dispersing animals in the Cretaceous period. C – blue spacer beads, here representing two million years each. (Note that some events are generalized to the epoch of occurrence, and often represent gradual changes anyway.) D – event bead for the extinction marking the end of the Cretaceous period, made of tektite (solidified impact ejecta) and signed by Dr. Walter Alvarez, the co-discoverer of the Alvarez theory (Alvarez et al. 1980: 1095–1108). E – event bead for the return of early whales to the water. F – bead indicating the begin-
ning of the Oligocene epoch, flanked by white spacer beads to indicate a geologic marker. G - event bead for the evolution of proconsul, an early ape (Leakey 1963: 32-49) flanked by clear spacer beads, indicating an Ancestor of humans. H - geologic marker beads indicating that within the Phanerozoic, within the Cenozoic, within the Neogene, the Miocene begins - all flanked by white spacer beads. I - green spacer beads. All colored spacer beads since the start of the Cenozoic represent 1 million years each.

**6. Resources for Big History Bead Set Construction**

Though resources are described here, the open ended nature of Big His-
tory beads gives the opportunity to find many solutions that are not
included here. It is also likely that items listed in this article will become
outdated over time.

**A. Timelines**

Depending on the class goals, timeline needs can vary significantly.
As a result, the needs of most classes will not be met exactly by any
given timeline available online. However, some timelines may come
close, and with only a little adjusting, can fit well. Some sources of free,
online timelines are below (with URLs for each in the Reference Sec-
tion), though additional examples can likely be found as well.

• 45 events in a Sagan Cosmic Calendar (Sagan 1977: 14–16);

• a 100 event timeline (Schick *et al.* 2013);

• a 216 event timeline (Barlow *et al.* 2002);

• a 248 event, time proportional timeline (Cleland-Host 2009);

• Chronozoom (Saekow *et al.* 2012);

• a list of many timelines to draw from (Levinson 2013);

* additional examples are available at the Great Story site (Barlow *et al.* 2002).

**B. Beads**

Another important variable is the source of the beads. A large
amount of different beads can be easily obtained in variety packs of
bulk beads, which are often inexpensive, even for glass or other higher
quality beads. While bulk variety packs provide a lot of variation and
often provide beads that are well suited to represent given events, often
some events still have no bead that obviously matches. For these cases,
many additional sources can provide beads with more specific informa-
tion. Also, the properties described in the Event Beads Section above
can all be things to look for in choosing beads. A wide variety of specific
beads is often available at craft stores, specialty bead stores, or on eBay.
In addition to these, beads can be constructed by drilling a narrow hole
in chosen objects, such as a large seed, a small bone, a small ammonite
fossil, a stone arrowhead, a coin, a computer chip, or any other object which works well to represent the chosen event. If none of those produces a bead fitting the chosen event, then clay (skulpt or conventional) can be used to fabricate the bead (see Fig. 2). Note that so called 'permanent' markers often fade over time, so paint covered by a clear coating is preferred for longevity. For longer Big History bead sets, clasps (such as barrel clasps, lobster claw clasps, wire wrapping, or others) can be included at points along the string. This makes it easier to add, remove, or replace beads nearby by allowing a break point to access the local beads, avoiding the need to remove and restring the entire set of Big History beads. Also, many options for cord exist for stringing the beads. The most durable option is stranded bead stringing wire available at many craft stores. Copper wire, fishing line, and many kinds of thread should be avoided because they tend to break over time. Thin hemp or other plant fiber cord is a useful option if an intentionally weaker bead strand is desired (e.g., members of households with small children may desire a weaker strand to avoid a strangulation hazard).

<figure><img src="image_36.png" /><figcaption>Fig. 2. Beads Hand-Made Using Clay</figcaption></figure>

In Fig. 2, the two larger beads here were hand-made using clay. The top bead represents the formation of the Pangaea supercontinent approxi-
mately 300 million years ago, with modern continent boundaries shown
by dotted lines ('SA' = South America, etc.). The bottom bead represents
the evolution of *Tiktaalik rosae* (Daeschler *et al.* 2006: 757–763) ~ 380 mil-
lion years ago.

7. Summary

Big History Beads have been used in hundreds of diverse settings to teach Big History to students from 5 to 90 years old at locations across the United States. This teaching tool can provide a clear depiction of otherwise difficult concepts characteristic of Big History such as increases in complexity, acceleration, convergence, and others. At the same time, Big History beads increase student enjoyment and engagement through personalization and the connection of the past and future through by representing long-term trends. Big History bead sets provide an accessible kinesthetic teaching method that engages students who might not otherwise fully explore the topic through other pedagogies, and can be adapted to a wide range of class goals, classroom settings, and grade levels. Resources and descriptions in this paper provide information and resources to investigate this teaching method, while still leaving substantial room for new innovations. While students report loving this activity and teachers enjoy using this method, controlled studies of their effectiveness in comparison to more conventional pedagogies are an area of opportunity in Big History research.

References

Alvarez L. W., Alvarez W., Asaro F., and Michel H. V. 1980. Extraterrestrial
Cause for the Cretaceous-Tertiary Extinction. *Science* 208(4448): 1095–1108.

Barlow C. 2000. *Ghosts of Evolution*. New York, NY: Basic Books.

Barlow C., and Dowd M. 2002. *Epic of Evolution Timeline*. URL: http://www.thegreatstory.com/make_beads.html.

Byers J. 1998. *American Pronghorn: Social Adaptations and the Ghosts of Predators Past*. Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press.

Christian D., and McNeill W. 2005. *Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History*. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Cleland-Host J. 2009. *My Cosmala*. URLs: http://www.thegreatstory.com/cosmala-timeline.pdf and http://www.thegreatstory.com/cosmala.pdf.

Coffield F., Moseley D., Hall E., and Ecclestone K. 2004. *Learning Styles and Pedagogy in Post-16 Learning. A Systematic and Critical Review*. London: Learning and Skills Research Centre.

Daeschler E. B., Shubin N. H., and Jenkins F. A. 2006. A Devonian Tetrapod-Like Fish and the Evolution of the Tetrapod Body Plan. *Nature* 440(7085): 757–763.
**Fleming N. D., and Mills C. 1992.** Not Another Inventory, Rather a Catalyst for Reflection. *To Improve the Academy* 11: 137–155.

**Hawk T., and Shah A. 2007.** Using Learning Style Instruments to Enhance Student Learning. *Decision Sciences Journal of Innovative Education* 5(1): 1–19.

**Jackson C. J., Hobman E., Jimmieson N., and Martin R. 2009.** Comparing Different Approach and Avoidance Models of Learning and Personality in the Prediction of Work, University and Leadership Outcomes. *British Journal of Psychology* 100: 283–312.

**Jaques D. 1991.** *Learning in Groups*. 2nd ed. London: Kogan Page Books.

**Joyce B., Calhoun E., and Hopkins D. 1997.** *Models of Learning – Tools for Teaching*. Buckingham: Open University Press.

**Leakey L. S. B. 1963.** East African Fossil Hominoidea and the Classification Within This Super-Family. *Classification and Human Evolution* / Ed. by S. L. Washburn, pp. 32–49. Chicago, IL: Aldine.

**Levinson D. 2013.** *List of Timelines*. Wikimedia Foundation URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_timelines.

**Massa L., and Mayer R. 2006.** Testing the ATI Hypothesis: Should Multimedia Instruction Accommodate Verbalizer-Visualizer Cognitive Style? *Learning and Individual Differences* 16: 321–336.

**Nishikimi M., Koshizaka T., Ozawa T., and Yagi K. 1988.** Occurrence in Humans and Guinea Pigs of the Gene Related to Their Missing Enzyme L-Gulonogamma-Lactone Oxidase. *Arch. Biochem. Biophys* 267(2): 842–846.

**Pashler H., McDaniel M., Rohrer D., and Bjork R. 2008.** Learning Styles: Concepts and Evidence. *Psychological Science in the Public Interest* 9: 105–119.

**Russell C. 2012.** *Evolution Beads*. URL: http://epicofevolution.com/activities/evolution-beads.html.

**Saekow R., and Alvarez W. 2012.** *Chronozoom*. University of California, Berkely: Department of Earth and Planetary Science. URL: http://eps.berkeley.edu/~saekow/chronozoom/.

**Sagan C. 1977.** *The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence*. New York: Ballantine Publishing Group: 14–16. Available at URL: http://www.cybermaze.com/astro/cosmiccal.html.

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## Contributors

**Abel A. Alves** is a professor of history at Ball State University. He is the author of *The Animals of Spain: An Introduction to Imperial Perceptions and Human Interaction with Other Animals, 1492–1826* (Brill, 2011) and *Brutality and Benevolence: Human Ethology, Culture, and the Birth of Mexico* (Greenwood, 1996). His articles have appeared in *The Sixteenth Century Journal, the International Journal of Anthropology*, ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, *Theology and Science*, and other publications. He also has contributed articles to the website of the Metanexus Institute (http://metanexus.net/), including 'Baroque Consilience: Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz', coauthored with Carol Blakney. The biological underpinnings of history are the focus of his research, from ethologically explained human behaviors to the roles played by other animals in our historical development.

**David Baker** studied his PhD in Big History at Macquarie University in Sydney under David Christian. He now teaches Big History at the universities of Amsterdam, Eindhoven, and Rotterdam alongside Fred Spier and Esther Quaedackers. His research interests include Universal Darwinism, collective learning, the rise of complexity, and demographic-structural theory. He is also engaged with the IBHA Publications Committee in setting up a Big History academic journal. This summer, he is releasing a Big History series on Youtube in partnership with Crashcourse and Bill Gates' bgC3.

**Ken Baskin** is a Fellow with the Institute for the Study of Coherence and Emergence, writes and speaks about the emerging worldview, reflecting the changed understanding of our world provided by sciences such as quantum mechanics and neurobiology, and its effects on social sciences. His approach to Big History is grounded in the dynamics explored in complexity theory, as in the book he is currently writing with Dr. Dmitri Bondarenko on Modernity as a second Axial Age. His recent essays have appeared in such publications as *Social Evolution and History*, *Chinese Management Studies*, and the *Journal of Change Management*. His book *Corporate DNA: Learning from Life*, translated into Chinese, explores how one can think of organizations as living things, rather than machines.

**Craig Benjamin** is an Associate Professor of History in the Frederik J. Meijer Honors College at Grand Valley State University in Michigan, USA. At GVSU Craig teaches Big History, world history, and East Asian history, to students at all levels, from first-year to post-graduate. Craig is a frequent guest presenter at conferences worldwide, and the author of numerous published books, chapters and essays on ancient Central Asian history, Big History, and world history. He is co-author (with David Christian and Cynthia Brown) of a Big History textbook – *Big History: Between Nothing and Everything* – published by McGraw-Hill in August 2013. Craig is also editor of Volume 4 of the forthcoming *Cambridge History of the World*. In addition to his many publications, Craig has recorded several programs and lecture series for the History Channel, The Teaching Company and *Scientific American magazine*. Craig is a member of the College Board Test Development Committees for both the AP and SAT World History exams; Treasurer of the International Big History Association; and current President (2014/15) of the World History Association.

**Cynthia Stokes Brown** (Ph.D. Johns Hopkins, 1964) taught history and education at Dominican University of California from 1981 to 2001. From 2001 to 2010 she taught Big
History part-time. Currently she is resident Big Historian in Dominican's Freshman Year Experience Big History Program. She serves on the board of the International Big History Association. She has written *Big History: From the Big Bang to the Present* (New Press, 2007 and 2012) and the first university textbook of Big History, with David Christian and Craig Benjamin, *Big History: Between Nothing and Everything* (McGraw-Hill, 2013).

**David Christian** has taught for most of his career at Macquarie University in Sydney (Australia). Between 2001 and 2008, he taught at San Diego State University in California (USA), and he also teaches at Ewha Womans University in Seoul (Korea). He was originally a historian of Russia, specializing in the history of material life. In 1989, he began teaching a course on the history of everything. In a 1991 article, Dr. Christian coined the phrase 'big history' to describe this project. In 2004, he published *Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History* and, in 2007, he recorded a set of 48 lectures on Big History for the Teaching Company. In 2010, he was elected founding President of the International Big History Association, and also began work on the construction of a free online syllabus in Big History for high school students throughout the world.

**Michael and D'Neil Duffy** have been involved in Montessori education for 35 years, since their daughter entered a Montessori school at age 2 1/2. D'Neil, who had been a teacher in the traditional public and private schools for 12 years before gravitating to Montessori, has Association Montessori International certification at the 3-6 level and American Montessori Society certification at the 6-12 level. She founded her own Montessori school in Georgia in 1979 and was the school's administrator for 21 years, teaching at every level but toddler. Michael, who had been a journalist by profession, was AMS-certified at the 6-12 level in 1990 and taught lower and upper elementary classes. Both joined the faculty at the Center for Montessori Teacher Education (New York), and they have trained Montessori teachers in New York, Phoenix, Boston, Toronto, Vancouver, and Puerto Rico. Recently they helped establish the Montessori Elementary Teacher Training Collaborative. The Duffys have given workshops at national and international Montessori conferences, and they gave a presentation at the first conference of the International Big History Association in 2012. They have authored three books on Montessori education, including *Children of the Universe: Cosmic Education in the Montessori Elementary Classroom*. Both have master degrees in education, D'Neil with a specialty in Guidance and Counseling, and Michael with a specialty in Media Education. They retired from the classroom in 2001 to devote more time to teacher training, writing and educational consulting, and they currently live in the mountains of Virginia.

**John Fowler**, MA Philosophy, PhD. Integral Studies, has practiced Montessori Education since 1981, as a classroom director and head of school, served as an adjunct faculty at Naropa University, and for 15 years as an adjunct faculty for the Endicott-TIES graduate programs in integrative and Montessori education. For the past 21 years he has worked in the Denver public schools where his school district has awarded him with 'exceeds expectation' awards for every year since that program's inception. He has been listed in *Who's Who in American Education* (2002), his articles have appeared in environmental and Montessori magazines and he has spoken at numerous national and international Montessori, environmental, and holistic education conferences, served on an advisory committee to the Lieutenant Governor of Colorado, and as a consultant to other public and charter school programs.
**Ken Gilbert** has been a pioneer of Big History ever since his undergraduate days at MIT in the Sixties. A synchronistic series of defining moments and fascinating insights were initiated at that time ultimately transforming his perspectives. These experiences inspired his lifelong project and quest for creativity in scholarship and education. Ken has been fortunate to enjoy many years researching a transdisciplinary synthesis of Big History, benefitting both from a wealth of expert guidance and the freedom of independent scholarship. His background includes Master's degrees from the California Institute of Integral Studies and Wayne State University, plus postgraduate research at the University of Edinburgh and Emory University on a Woodruff Fellowship. He introduced Big History at the World History Association of Texas 2012 Conference, and has participated in conferences sponsored by the Templeton Foundation. Ken passionately believes in the prospects for Big History contributing towards a timely transformation of our collective learning through two interconnected developments: a Grand Unified Theory of evolution throughout history, and a meaningful Grand Unified Story for research and education at all levels. To this end, he is currently working on expanding and deepening the initial elements proposed in his IBHA Inaugural Conference paper for constructing a new Integral Evolutionary Synthesis in the context of Big History. Ken seeks to teach at the college level, and work towards introducing a Big History program, based on the wonderful precedent underway at Dominican, at a local university.

**Leonid E. Grinin** is the Deputy Director of the Eurasian Center for Big History & System Forecasting and Senior Research Professor at the Institute for Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, as well as Research Professor and the Director of the Volgograd Center for Social Research. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the journal *Age of Globalization* (in Russian), as well as a co-editor of the international journals *Social Evolution & History* and *Journal of Globalization Studies*. His current research interests include macrohistory and long-term trends, sociocultural evolution, theory of history, world-systems studies, long-term development of political systems, globalization studies, economic cycles, and Big History studies. Dr Grinin is the author of more than 360 scholarly publications in Russian and English, including 26 monographs. Select monographs include *Philosophy, Sociology, and the Theory of History* (2007, in Russian); *Productive Forces and Historical Process* (2006, in Russian); *State and Historical Process* (3 vols, 2009–2010, in Russian); *Social Macroevolution: World System Transformations* (2009, in Russian; with Andrey Korotayev); *Macroevolution in Biological and Social Systems* (2008, in Russian; with Alexander Markov and Andrey Korotayev); *Global Crisis in Retrospective: A Brief History of Upswings and Crises* (2010, in Russian; with A. Korotayev); *The Evolution of Statehood: From Early State to Global Society* (2011); *From Confucius to Comte: The Formation of the Theory, Methodology and Philosophy of History* (2012, in Russian); *Macrohistory and Globalization* (2012); *Cycles, Crises, and Traps of the Modern World-System: Kondratieff, Juglar and Secular Cycles, Global Crises, and the Malthusian and Post-Malthusian Traps* (2012, in Russian; with A. Korotayev); *Big History: Cosmic Evolution* (2013, in Russian).

**Lowell Gustafson** holds his PhD in Government and Foreign Affairs from the University of Virginia and is Professor of Political Science at Villanova University. He is a founding member and Secretary of the International Big History Association. His publications include *The Sovereignty Dispute over the Falkland (Malvinas) Islands, The Religious Challenge to the State, Economic Development under Democratic Regimes: Neoliberalism in Latin America, Thucydides' Theory of International Relations, Ancient Maya Gender Identity and Rela-
tions, Economic Performance Under Democratic Regimes in Latin America in the Twenty-First Century, and National and Human Security Issues in Latin America: Democracies at Risk.

**Jonathon Cleland Host** earned his Ph.D. at Northwestern University in Materials Science, including anthropological metal use. He has conducted research benefitting solar power, silicon technology and nanotechnology at Hemlock Semiconductor and Dow Corning since 1997. From that work he holds five patents and has authored over three dozen internal papers and eleven papers for scientific journals, including the journal *Nature*. He has taught biology, math, chemistry, physics and general science at the college level, and an evolutionary biology segment at the high school level. He has also led many science outreach projects, reaching children from elementary school through High School. Big History has been an overarching theme of his career for over two decades, including many collaborative projects with Michael Dowd and Connie Barlow, online podcast interviews, and other activities. His focus on Big History has included Big History sections or topics in many of his classes taught at the university and high school level, as well as presentations on Big History topics at the first International Big History conference in 2012 and at Michigan Community College Biologist conferences in 2011 and 2013. His latest Big History project (in partnership with Heather Cleland-Host) is *Elemental Birthdays*, which is an instruction manual for the fun and educational inclusion of Big History, including stellar nucleosynthesis, in the celebration of birthdays of all ages.

**Andrey V. Korotayev** is Senior Research Professor of the Oriental Institute and Institute for African Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences. In addition, he heads the Laboratory of Monitoring of the Risks of Sociopolitical Destabilization at the National Research University, Higher School of Economics. He works also as a Senior Research Professor at the Laboratory of Political Demography and Macrosocial Dynamics of the Russian Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, as a Professor of the Faculty of Global Studies of the Moscow State University and as Professor of the Russian State University for the Humanities. He is the author of over 300 scholarly publications, including such monographs as *Ancient Yemen* (1995), *World Religions and Social Evolution of the Old World Oikumene Civilizations: A Cross-Cultural Perspective* (2004), *Introduction to Social Macrodynamics: Compact Macromodels of the World System Growth* (2006), *Introduction to Social Macrodynamics: Secular Cycles and Millennial Trends* (2006), *Macroevolution in Biological and Social Systems* (2008, in Russian; with Alexander Markov and Leonid Grinin); *Global Crisis in Retrospective: A Brief History of Upswings and Crises* (2010, in Russian; with Leonid Grinin), and *Cycles, Crises, and Traps of the Modern World-System* (2012, in Russian; with Leonid Grinin). At present, together with Askar Akaev and Sergey Malkov, he coordinates the Russian Academy of Sciences Presidium Project 'Complex System Analysis and Mathematical Modeling of Global Dynamics'. He is a laureate of the Russian Science Support Foundation in 'The Best Economists of the Russian Academy of Sciences' Nomination (2006).

**Alexander V. Markov** is Senior Research Fellow of the Institute for Paleontology of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He is the author of more than 140 scientific publications in zoology, paleontology, evolution theory, historical dynamics of biodiversity, and in other fields of evolutionary biology, including monographs: *Morphology, Systematics and Phylogeny of Sea Urchins of the Schizasteridae Family* (1994); *Quantitative Laws of Macroevolution: Experience of Systematic Approach Use for the Analysis of Supraspecific Taxons* (1998; with E. B. Naymark); *Macroevolution in Biological and Social Systems* (2008; with Leonid Grinin, Andrey Korotayev), *Hyperbolic Growth in Biological and Social Systems* (2009; with Andrey Korotayev), *Human Evolution* (two volumes, 2011). Dr. Markov
is a member of the Editorial Board of *Journal of General Biology*, an author of numerous popular science publications, the founder and author of the research and education portal 'Problems of Evolution' (http://www.evolbiol.ru).

**Esther Quaedackers** has been teaching Big History at the University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam University College, and the Eindhoven University of Technology since 2006, alongside Fred Spier. She is also working on a PhD that has a thesis topic about the 'Little Big History' of Tiananmen Square. Ms. Quaedackers became interested in Big History while studying architecture at the Eindhoven University of Technology. She suspected Big History might be able to provide some answers to the large architecture questions she had been thinking about, such as why our built environment looks the way it does, why people built it the way they did, and why they built it in the first place. When, after obtaining her Master's degree in architecture (with honors), she got the chance to study and teach Big History, she changed her plans to become an architect into plans to become a Big Historian of building instead.

**Barry H. Rodrigue** was born and raised on the eastern borderlands of Canada and the United States. He worked in Alaska for 20 years as an ethnographer, field biologist, journalist and commercial fisherman. While there, he founded the international journal, *Archipelago*, and collected songs, stories and music for the legendary Folkways Records (available through the Smithsonian Institution's *Global Sound* series). A Fulbright Scholar and graduate of The Evergreen State College (Washington) and L'Université Laval (Québec), Dr. Rodrigue works as a geographer and archeologist on projects pertaining to ethnicity and global networks – both as a scholar and as an active world citizen. His efforts focus on the local, regional and global linkages between issues as diverse as indigenous adaptation in the Appalachian Highlands and peace initiatives in the Caucasus. He has produced a variety of award-winning articles and books, individually and with others, such as *L'Histoire régionale de Beauce-Etchemin-Amiante* (2003), which was runner-up for the Canadian Historical Association's Sir John A. MacDonald Prize for most significant contribution to Canadian history. He is presently a professor at the University of Southern Maine (USA), where he founded The Collaborative for Global & Big History (for more information, visit their website at http://www.usm.maine.edu/lac/global/bighistory/). He also serves as International Coordinator of the International Big History Association (IBHA).

**Ekaterina Sazhienko** was born in Gubakha, a small industrial city in the Ural Mountains, in the center of Russia. She is a postgraduate student and studies at the International University of Humanity and Nature, which is located in Dubna, one of the Russian 'science cities'. The subject of her MA thesis was the mega-historical model for forecasting and regulation of global social processes. She continues to work on this subject now.

**Tracy Sullivan** is Education Program Leader for the Big History Institute, Macquarie University and manages the Australian portion of the Big History Project. Trained as a secondary History teacher Tracy taught in Australian classrooms for eight years before moving to the tertiary sector, lecturing in History Education at the University of Sydney and the University of New South Wales. A former Churchill Fellow and Westfield Premiers Teachers scholar Tracy is currently completing a PhD in Education at Macquarie University exploring the transformative impact of Big History as a vehicle for interdisciplinarity learning at the secondary level.

**Joseph Voros** started out as a physicist, and has a PhD in theoretical physics. During this time he worked on mathematical extensions to the General Theory of Relativity. This
was followed by several years with internet-related companies, including the legendary Netscape Communications Corporation in Silicon Valley (California), before becoming a professional futurist. For over a decade he has taught courses on thinking seriously about the future. Wherever possible – whether in formal teaching or in popular speaking – he endeavors to emphasize an expanded perspective on our place in the Universe, which includes cosmic evolution and Big History. His interests are broadly multidisciplinary and include the emerging field of ‘integral inquiry’, theories and models of social change, the long-term future of humankind, astrobiology/SETI, and the broad sweep of cosmic evolutionary history as a framework for conceptualizing the human knowledge quest and futures research. Three of his research articles have won excellence awards, including an Outstanding Paper Award in 2010. He is a member of the World Futures Studies Federation, a professional member of the World Future Society, and is a founding member and current board member of the International Big History Association.

**Sun Yue** is an associate professor, who works at the College of Foreign Languages and the Global History Center, School of History of Capital Normal University in Beijing. Meanwhile, he edits the *Global History Review*, the first such academic publication in China. Dr. Sun’s doctoral dissertation deals with the *Malleus Maleficarum* and the Early Modern European Witch-Hunt. Now he is intent on widening his perspective, to get a clearer picture of human undertakings on planet earth or even in the universe.