Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. Contents vii
3. Illustrations xi
4. Tables xiii
5. Acknowledgments xv
6. Introduction 1
7. Part One. The Case for Big History
8. One. What Is Big History? 11
9. Two. Big History and the Goals of Liberal Education 21
10. Three. Summer Institutes: Collective Learning as Meta-Education 27
11. Four. Assessing Big History Outcomes: Or, How to Make Assessment Inspiring 41
12. Five. Big History at Other Institutions 56
13. Part Two. A Practical Pedagogy for Teaching Big History
14. Six. Teaching Complexity in a Big History Context 77
15. Seven. Teaching Threshold 1: The Big Bang 91
16. Eight. Teaching Threshold 2: The Formation of Stars and Galaxies 109
17. Nine. Teaching Threshold 3: Heavier Chemical Elements and the Life Cycle of Stars 120
18. Ten. Teaching Threshold 4: The Formation of Our Solar System and Earth 135
19. Eleven. Teaching Threshold 5: The Evolution of Life on Earth 149
20. Twelve. Teaching Threshold 6: The Rise of Homo Sapiens 164
21. Thirteen. Teaching Threshold 7: The Agrarian Revolution 201
22. Fourteen. Teaching Threshold 8: Modernity and Industrialization 215
23. Fifteen. Threshold 9? Teaching Possible Futures 232
24. Sixteen. Reflective Writing in the Big History Classroom 261
25. Seventeen. Activities for Multiple Thresholds 275
26. Eighteen. Igniting Critical Curiosity: Fostering Information Literacy through Big History 287
27. Nineteen. A Little Big History of Big History 296
28. Part Three. Big History and its Implications
29. Twenty. Big History at Dominican: An Origin Story 311
30. Twenty-One. Teaching Big History or Teaching about Big History? Big History and Religion 318
31. Twenty-Two. The Case for Awe 336
32. Conclusion 343
33. Annotated Bibliography of Big History Texts and Resources 361
34. Contributors 401
35. Index 407