Big History Project Exam Terminology Year 9

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accretion

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The process by which planets form as material orbiting some stars gathers togetherthrough collisions and gravitational or electrostatic attraction, eventually forming largerand larger bodies.

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adaptation

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A fundamental ability of living organisms enabling them to change from generation togeneration, b oming better suited to their environment.

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Accretion

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The process by which planets form as material orbiting some stars gathers together through collisions and gravitational or electrostatic attraction, eventually forming larger and larger bodies.

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Adaptation

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A fundamental ability of living organisms enabling them to change from generation to generation, becoming better suited to their environment.

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Agrarian era

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An era of human history, beginning roughly 10,000 years ago, when most people were focused on agriculture.

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Agriculture

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A way of exploiting the environment by increasing the productivity of those plant and animal species most beneficial for human beings; vastly more productive than foraging technologies. Its appearance marks a revolutionary transformation in human history.

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Archaeology

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The scientific study of humans and their ancestors by excavation and examination of material remains.

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Atmosphere

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The mixture of gases surrounding a planet. The composition of the Earth’s atmosphere has played a critical role in the development of life on Earth.

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Bacteria

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Very simple, unicellular, asexual, and prokaryotic organisms. The first forms of life were most likely similar to bacteria.

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Big Bang

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A theory, first articulated in the 1920s, proposing that the Universe started out extremely hot and dense and gradually cooled off as it expanded.

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Accretion

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The process by which planets form as material orbiting some stars gathers together through collisions and gravitational or electrostatic attraction, eventually forming larger and larger bodies.

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Adaptation

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A fundamental ability of living organisms enabling them to change from generation to generation, becoming better suited to their environment.

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Agrarian era

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An era of human history, beginning roughly 10,000 years ago, when most people were focused on agriculture.

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Agriculture

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A way of exploiting the environment by increasing the productivity of those plant and animal species most beneficial for human beings; vastly more productive than foraging technologies. Its appearance marks a revolutionary transformation in human history.

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Archaeology

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The scientific study of humans and their ancestors by excavation and examination of material remains.

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Atmosphere

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The mixture of gases surrounding a planet. The composition of the Earth’s atmosphere has played a critical role in the development of life on Earth.

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Bacteria

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Very simple, unicellular, asexual, and prokaryotic organisms. The first forms of life were most likely similar to bacteria.

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Big Bang

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A theory, first articulated in the 1920s, proposing that the Universe started out extremely hot and dense and gradually cooled off as it expanded.

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Biodiversity

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The variety of life forms in a habitat, whether that habitat is a local environment or an entire planet.

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Biosphere

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The entire network of life on Earth; the region of Earth in which living organisms can be found.

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chemical element

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A fundamental type of atom, distinguished by varying numbers of protons and electrons and having unique physical properties. Many elements are formed as products of dying stars.

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Civilization

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A human society having dense population, large public buildings, a central authority and, often, a system of writing or other means of recording information.

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claim testing

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The use of strategies to decide whether a story or concept should or should not be trusted. The four strategies for claim testing that we use in Big History are intuition, authority, logic, and evidence.

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collective learning

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The ability to share, preserve, and build upon ideas over time.

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Columbian Exchange

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The movement of plants, animals, and people in all directions across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans after 1492.

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Complexity

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A quality of an object or system that has diverse components precisely arranged in connection with one another (so that new properties emerge which did not exist in the components alone).

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Cuneiform

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The world’s first known system of writing, written with reeds on wet clay in Mesopotamia (Sumer); the first written records date back a little more than 5,000 years.

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Domestication

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The process of taming an organism through generations of breeding to eliminate unwanted tendencies and cultivate desired ones.

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Electromagnetism

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One of the four fundamental forces or interactions, along with gravity, the weak nuclearforce, and the strong nuclear force. Among other things, electromagnetism isresponsible for the interaction between electrically charged particles, including holding electrons and protons together to form atoms. Electromagnetism is also responsible for essentially all molecular interactions.

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emergent properties

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Properties of a complex system that are not present within its parts but that emerge only when those parts are combined.

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Evolution

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Change over time. Applied most frequently to the development of living organisms according to the principles of natural selection, as identified by Charles Darwin in the nineteenth century.

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exchange network

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A system of interaction through which humans share and trade information, goods, and, sometimes, diseases.

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Fertile Crescent

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An area of fertile river valleys in Mesopotamia that contain the earliest evidence of agriculture.

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Foraging

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Relying on nature for sustenance; hunting and gathering. Foraging was the dominant way of life during the Paleolithic era.

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fossil fuel

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A carbon- based material such as coal, oil, or natural gas that can be used as an energy source. Fossil fuels were originally formed when the remains of living organisms were buried and broken down by intense heat and pressure over millions of years.

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Globalization

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The increasing interconnection of the world that began at about 1500 CE and has accelerated since 1800.

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Goldilocks Conditions

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Specific set of conditions necessary to enable greater complexity. The reference is to the fairy tale Goldilocks and the Three Bears, in which Goldilocks looks for the porridge, chair, and bed that are “just right.”

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Gravity

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The fundamental force of attraction between any two objects that have mass.

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Homo sapiens

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The scientific name for our species, which is thought to have evolved in Africa between 200,000 and 300,000 years ago.

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Industrial Revolution

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A period of technological innovation starting in England late in the eighteenth century that resulted in a major change in the way goods were produced and caused a major shift in global economics.

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Ingredients

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Components that are put together to form something new and more complex.

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Irrigation

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The control of the flow of water to support agriculture

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Life

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Four commonly accepted attributes of life are that it uses energy from the environment by eating or breathing or photosynthesizing (metabolism); it makes copies of itself (reproduction); over many generations it can change characteristics to adapt to its changing environment (adaptation); and it can regulate internal conditions in order to maintain a stable state (homeostasis).

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Migration

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Movement of animals from one place to another, often in search of more abundant resources.

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Modern Revolution

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A deliberately vague label for the revolutionary transformations that have created the modern world. The Modern Revolution began around 1500 and ushered in the modern era of human history.

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Neanderthal

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A species of hominine very closely related to our own species, Homo sapiens. The two lineages probably diverged at least 500,000 years ago; Neanderthals went extinct 35,000 to 30,000 years ago. Genetic research shows that the DNA of people with Eurasian ancestry is 1 to 4 percent Neanderthal.

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Nomadic

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A migratory way of life often dictated by climate and food sources.

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origin story

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A narrative about the beginning of the Universe and humanity.

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Pangaea

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The vast supercontinent formed more than 200 million years ago as plate movements joined the major continental plates together. It is probable that such supercontinents have formed periodically throughout Earth’s history. The existence of a single huge landmass probably reduced biodiversity.

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Photosynthesis

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The conversion of light energy to chemical energy, which is stored in sugars or other organic compounds, and is performed by plants, algae, and a few other organisms. The first evidence of photosynthesis is from about 3.5 billion years ago. Photosynthesis supplies most of the energy necessary for life within the biosphere and is the source of most atmospheric oxygen, which is released as a byproduct of photosynthesis.

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plate tectonics

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The idea that the Earth's crust (together with the upper mantle) is broken up into separate plates that are in constant motion, explaining continental drift as well as the distribution of earthquakes, volcanoes, mountain ranges, and other rock structures, and many other features of the planet. Plate tectonics has been a central unifying theory in modern Earth sciences (geology) since the 1960s.

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Silk Roads

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The trade routes connecting Europe to the Middle East, India, and China.

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Solar System

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The Sun and the objects that orbit it; the area in space in which the Sun’s gravitational pull is the dominant force.

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Star

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A huge cloud of simple matter held together by gravity. The star, the first complex entity in the Universe, has structure, stability, and sustained energy flow due to nuclear fusion at its center.

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Supernova

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The explosion of a massive star at the end of its life; most chemical elements are created by supernova explosions.

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thresholds of increasing complexity

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Moments in the history of the Universe when specific ingredients under the right "Goldilocks Conditions" come together to create something new and more complex.

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Universe

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All the matter and energy in existence, as well as the space that contains it.

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world zone

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A large region of the world where humans settled with a high degree of contact with others in their region, but without contact with people from other regions. The world zones are: Afro-Eurasia, Americas, Australia, and Pacific.