By Jennifer Ortiz
Staff Writer
UPPER FREEHOLD – More than 13 billion years of history is being taught at the Stone Bridge Middle School in a course known as the Big History Project that starts with the creation of the universe – the Big Bang – and comes all the way today.
The course was created by professors in Sydney, Australia, at the University of California, Berkeley, and at the University of Michigan. The Big History Project is designed to study the historical “forces of change” over the course of history and is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
According to bighistory.com, the course examines the past, explains the present and imagines the future.
Teacher Christopher Scaturo said the idea to implement the Big History Project course at Stone Bridge began four years ago when a friend introduced him to the course.
The Upper Freehold Regional School District Board of Education eventually approved the course for middle school pupils and Scaturo received training in Seattle and at the University of Michigan.
“It was intense. It’s hard in the sense that there is a lot of information,” Scaturo said of the training. “I describe it to people as an introduction to everything. It’s astrophysics, chemistry, human evolution, nutrition, economic resource allocation and future scientific advancements.”
Scaturo said teachers are instructed to focus on the philosophy behind the course, the objectives and key lessons.
The focus is on “how everything is connected and to question how answers are derived so you can come up with even better answers. To see how science has changed. To look into new information and project what it will become. To see how the events of a couple billion years ago still effect us today,” he said.
“You just have to be willing to look it up and get kids to try to find those answers themselves; to ask good questions and point them in the right direction when needed, to find the answers,” Scaturo said.
Scaturo said that after four years of teaching the Big History Project, he continues to learn just as much as his students do.
“There are a lot of really good questions and a lot of ‘wow’ moments. Part of the school’s goal is to increase the wonder aspect to get kids excited about learning something. This class engages kids,” he said.
Scaturo said that at the end of the year he asks his students what their favorite unit was and the answers are always varied.
“We learn so much that everyone finds a different subject they like. They are finding interests they had and can expand on, or that they did not even know was there,” he said.
Scaturo said one topic his students often like is the information about the domestication of dogs because of their love for their own pets.
“The domestication of corn is a lot less interesting, but if you connect is to dogs it has the carry-over effect,” the teacher said.
Scaturo said the Big History Project began as a social studies option for seventh-graders.
“Then we moved it to eighth grade the following year and we found it was beneficial because of vocabulary and science (aspects). It helped a lot,” he said.
The Big History Project is currently an elective available to Stone Bridge eighth-graders. The first half of the course covers the Big Bang to the rise of life on earth. The second half of the course picks up with human evolution. Students may take one or both sections.