Big Era Nine: Landscape Unit 9.5


		Complete Teaching Unit in PDF format

The World at Warp Speed: Science, Technology, and the Computer Revolution
1970 - Present

Why This Unit?

Scientific and technological change over the past thirty-five years has accelerated at an ever-increasing pace. This change brings advances which spread around the world, increasing global interaction and, for many, improving the quality of life. This unit highlights two main ideas: 1) specific achievements in communications, transportation, health, medicine, and agriculture; 2) how the confluence of these achievements has transformed and challenged traditional economic, social, and political structures, often in unexpected ways.

This unit will challenge students to consider the moral and ethical issues that have emerged as a result of these advances in science and technology. In addition, the uneven dissemination of the technological and communications revolutions has resulted in great disparities in who has access to these new tools.

Unit Objectives

Upon completing this unit, students will be able to:

1. Analyze how revolutions in communication and information technology have contributed to the acceleration of social change.

2. Assess the impact of biotechnology on human society and the ecology.

3. Trace the development of the new physics and its implications.

4. Identify key medical advances over the past two decades and their implications for longevity and social policy.

5. Identify new trends in the twenty-first century and analyze divergent opinions regarding them.

Time and Materials

This unit is best done in a week of forty-five minute classes. If time is limited, students can do any of the lessons on their own. Materials required are included in this unit.

Table of Contents

Why this unit?	2
Unit objectives	2
Time and materials	3
Author	3
The historical context	3
This unit in the Big Era timeline	5
Lesson 1: Is it Always Nice to Share?	6
Lesson 2: Everything Bad is Good for You	12
Lesson 3: Health Care: A Right or A Privilege?	17
Lesson 4: A History of Space and Time	24
Lesson 5: The World is Flat	29
This unit and the Three Essential Questions	32
This unit and the Seven Key Themes	32
This unit and the Standards in Historical Thinking	32
Resources	33
Correlations to National and State Standards and to Textbooks	34
Conceptual links to other lessons	34

Complete Teaching Unit in PDF Format

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