Lesson Purpose
For most of the agrarian era, the four world zones operated independently of each other with little or no knowledge of what was going on in the other zones. The world, in effect, was divided into four unconnected regions, none of which was really interested in the others. With the improved transportation and communication technologies developed 500 years ago, humans acquired the means for connecting these formerly independent zones. After 1492, for example, the Americas and Afro-Eurasia were put in regular contact, and the Columbian Exchange saw the transfer of people, ideas, animals, plants, and diseases between these two once separated world zones. Exchanges like these fuelled social, political, economic, and intellectual innovation. Within a few hundred years, this more fully connected world saw dramatic acceleration in innovation and population growth, which ushered in the Modern Revolution.
The outcomes of this lesson are: 1.) To describe accelerating global change and the factors that contribute to it.
The outcomes of this lesson are: 1.) To describe accelerating global change and the factors that contribute to it.
Activity 1 - The Appetite for Energy
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Activity Objectives
Gaining a sense of how much and what types of energy we use today helps us understand how much things have really changed over the last 500 years. It also helps us think about how our energy consumption impacts the Earth, and what this might mean for the future. Activity Tasks How do we know that life is different today from what it was 500 or 1,000 years ago? One way to do this is to look at how humans’ lives have changed from then to now, and one area where dramatic change has taken place is in energy use.
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Activity 2 - Threshold 8: The Modern Revolution
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The Modern Revolution has created a world very different from the one students saw in the age of the foragers and the agrarian era. The connection of the four world zones, expanding networks of exchange, and new sources of energy have allowed humans to become a global species and the dominant life form in the biosphere.
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Activity Objectives
In this video, David Christian provides an introduction to the eighth threshold of increasing complexity, the Modern Revolution. Knowing how and why the Modern Revolution developed is critical for your understanding of this threshold’s emergent properties—globalization, increased control over Earth’s resources, and rapid population growth—which will be the focus of much of this lesson. Activity Tasks
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Activity 3 - The Driving Question Notebook
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Activity Objectives
This activity will help you focus on one of the biggest ideas in Unit 9. Activity Tasks
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Activity 4 - The Industrial Revolution: Crash Course
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Before the Industrial Revolution most people grew their own food to support themselves and their families. What they needed to survive in terms of clothing, furniture, and utensils they either made themselves or traded for the food they produced. During the Industrial Revolution, machines powered by steam and fossil fuels began to speed up the production of textiles, and this work moved from homes and small shops into factories. As production of these items grew, costs were lowered, and it became easier for people to buy the items that they had typically made. This was just one of the many ways that the Industrial Revolution changed how the average person lived.
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Activity Objectives
The Industrial Revolution transformed the way that goods are produced, and this transformation is a major feature of the Modern Revolution. The Industrial Revolution saw the rise of production in factories rather than in homes or small shops, the production of goods by machines rather than by hand, and the growth of a class of workers paid in wages. Understanding these changes deepens our understanding of exactly how and why acceleration occurred in this time period. Activity Tasks
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Activity 5 - "The Industrial Revolution"
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Activity Objectives
Understanding more about the Industrial Revolution helps you to gain even more knowledge about all of the changes and innovations that accelerated the pace of change in the world. This adds another dimension to your understanding of the contributing factors that led to global change and the Modern Revolution. Activity Tasks
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The Industrial Revolution was built on innovation. The steam engine was designed to help pump water out of mines, but this machine was improved and modified for use in the textile industry, in transportation, and in many other areas. The changes were both positive and negative but one thing was certain: the Industrial Revolution led to an acceleration in collective learning that we are still experiencing today
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Activity 6 - How did change Accelerate?
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The Modern Revolution was made possible by increasing rates of innovation, which allowed humans to sustain long-term population and economic growth, something that eluded them during the agrarian era. This new level of innovation was made possible by the connection of the four world zones and the exploitation of new energy sources, like fossil fuels.
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Activity Objectives
Acceleration defines the Modern Revolution and explains why human populations and economies have been able to grow dramatically, and sustain that growth. You need to understand the nature of acceleration and how this relates to why humans have been able to sustain innovation in the modern world when they could not do it in earlier times. Activity Tasks
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Activity 7 - "Acceleration"
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Activity Objectives
You have been learning about acceleration this entire lesson. This article focuses in on acceleration itself and not just the causes of it. By encountering concrete examples of acceleration, you can make connections to better understand the process as a whole. Activity Tasks
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Activity 8 - Debate: Is Change Accelerating?
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Activity Objectives
In this activity you will be asked to apply what you have learned about acceleration by examining whether or not rates of innovation can keep up with rates of acceleration. Understanding this helps you to better predict the state of our world in the future. Activity Tasks
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Challenge Yourself! - Optional Activities
1. Get a sense of the state of the world through maps and data sorted by 11 categories.
2. Travel back in time to a nineteenth-century woollen mill and learn about the machines that were used for each stage of the wool production process.
3. Explore seven scenes about life in an Industrial Revolution-era British city.
4. The most populous country in the world is China, with 1,355,692,576 people; the least is the tiny Caribbean island of Montserrat, with a mere 5,215.
2. Travel back in time to a nineteenth-century woollen mill and learn about the machines that were used for each stage of the wool production process.
3. Explore seven scenes about life in an Industrial Revolution-era British city.
4. The most populous country in the world is China, with 1,355,692,576 people; the least is the tiny Caribbean island of Montserrat, with a mere 5,215.