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Big Era One: Landscape
Unit 1.1
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| The horizon of human history
13,000,000,000 - 4,000,000 years ago
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Why This Unit? |
We
all have a need to understand beginnings. People from
different ethno-racial backgrounds and religions have
rooted themselves in particular understandings of beginnings.
One cannot understand the history of the world without
understanding different ways in which individuals and
groups have perceived the origins of the world. This unit
engages students in a consideration of why an understanding
of beginnings is so important to people. In it students
will investigate, compare, and contrast different creation
myths. Students will consider some of the modern scientific
processes and procedures used to judge the validity of
different creation myths, including the theory of evolution.
Finally, based on their consideration of myths and scientific
theories, students will examine what it means to “know”
something and the role of theories in understanding the
world around them. The content considered in this unit
serves as a foundation for the entire world history course
that follows.
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| Unit Objectives |
Upon completing this unit, students
will be able to:
1. Explain why people possess an intrinsic need to
understand both their and the world’s beginnings.
2.Compare and contrast features of different creation
myths, and analyze how these myths have satisfied
the needs of people with different backgrounds to
understand the origins of the world.
3.Describe the order in which different components
of the universe came into existence, according to
the Big Bang Theory.
4. Analyze the idea that people often understand the
world through theories rather than absolute knowledge
and that theories are based on the best knowledge
available to people at a particular time.
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Time and Materials |
3
class periods (40 minutes each)
Markers and/or crayons
Unlined paper
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Table of Contents |
Why This Unit? |
2 |
Unit Objectives |
2 |
Time and Materials |
2 |
Authors |
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The Historical Context
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3 |
| This Unit in the Big Era Timeline |
5 |
| Lesson 1: Creation Myths |
6 |
| Lesson 2: A Modern Perspective
on the Origins of the World |
14 |
Lesson 3: Knowledge, Myths and You |
19 |
This unit and the Three Essential Questions |
24 |
This unit and the Seven Key Themes |
24 |
This unit and the Standards in Historical Thinking |
24 |
Conceptual Link to Other Teaching Units |
25 |
Resources |
25 |
| Correlations to National and State Standards and
to Textbooks |
25 |
| Conceptual links to other lessons |
27 |
| Complete
Teaching Unit in PDF Format |
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