Finally! I have hoped for this since i was a sprout. If you are into STEM, critical thinking, science literacy, systems thinking, etc. take note...
"Big History is an emerging academic discipline which examines history from the Big Bang to the present. It examines long time frames using a multidisciplinary approach based on combining numerous disciplines from science and the humanities, and explores human existence in the context of this bigger picture. It integrates studies of the cosmos, Earth, life, and humanity using empirical evidence to explore cause-and-effect relations, and is taught at universities and secondary schools often using web-based interactive presentations." Wkipedia
Big History NPR story
http://www.npr.org/2016/01/05/461997753/big-history-challenges-musty-history-critics-raise-questions
Big History TED talk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqc9zX04DXs
Big History Project
https://www.bighistoryproject.com/home
https://school.bighistoryproject.com/bhplive
Bill Gates & Big History
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/07/magazine/so-bill-gates-has-this-idea-for-a-history-class.html?_r=0
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Back in 2001 at my first AGU I submitted the following abstract and poster suggesting how using storytelling around powers of ten temporal scaling can help convey the essential cosmic (billion years), geologic (millions of years), evolutionary (thousands of years) and ultimately human time scales (recent decades and centuries).
The abstract was submitted as part of the really impressive series of talks called "The Big Bang and Me" which started pre-Big Bang and, through a series of detailed talks, led to life now and into the future, including likely climate change scenarios and ultimately the demise of the Sun and solar system.
Storytelling Through the Temporal Bands: Collapsing Time With the Power of Ten
Abstract
Framing the history of the universe with a logarithmic axis in time provides an opportunity to break the temporal continuum into specific segments within the continuum of time. In recent years, the log-ten approach to temporal scaling has been used as a scientific and educational scaffolding for a variety of cosmic and Earth system processes and events, such as in J.M. Mitchell's 1976 "An Overview of Climatic Variability and Its Causal Mechanisms," (Quaternary Research 6, 481-493) and the "temporal bands" presented in the 1986 Bretherton Report and follow-up "Earth System Science: A Closer View (1988, NASA). Other efforts, such as the NOAA Climate TimeLine Information Tool (http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/paleo/ctl) have begun to further flesh out the "powers of ten" framework, which allows time to be effectively collapsed in order to focus on particular aspects of the evolution and existence of the universe. We will present an overview of past efforts to capture the breadth of the universe using log-ten temporal scaling. In addition, particular "stories" from each time scale will be proposed: from the first seconds of the Big Bang (+10 10Yrs.) to the development of light, galaxies and solar systems and planet Earth (10 9Yrs.), from the tectonic processes, evolution of biologic life, and mass extinctions that have occurred at the scales of millions of years, to the orbital processes that serve as the primary trigger of Ice Ages over hundreds of thousands of years, then focusing on the emergence of Homo sapiens from Africa in the past 100,000 years, the development of agriculture and civilizations in the past 10,000 years or so during the Holocene, and then concentrating on shorter time-scales and the events and processes they span. Whether beginning at the beginning (The Big Bang) or beginning at the sub-annual scale in which our everyday lives are lived, the "powers of ten" provide a scientific framework that holds strong potential for communicating the history and nature of the universe.
Storytelling Through the Temporal Bands: Collapsing Time With the Power of Ten. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/252292008_Storytelling_Through_the_Temporal_Bands_Collapsing_Time_With_the_Power_of_Ten [accessed Jan 5, 2016].
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