Common Core @USM-LAC  Tags: lewiston gen_ed common_core  

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This middle phase course serves as an introduction to the foundations, processes, and consequences of global events from an interdisciplinary perspective. The course focus will be on human history, since–of all species–humans are making the largest impact on the planet today. Unlike traditional courses on world history and geography, Global Past, Global Present adopts a more generalized and larger view, one which has come to be called “Big History” by professional historians. In order to properly situate humans in the scheme of things, we need to understand the context of human existence–from the Big Bang to Globalization. For example, at the start of the course, we will survey current scientific thought on how the universe, Earth, organic molecules, and life developed, as well as human evolution. This will involve the integration of studies from astronomy, physics, chemistry, geology, biology, paleontology, archeology, and anthropology. While this knowledge of origins is important in its own right, it also allows discussion of creation myths, which intertwine with how proponents of science and creationism have been engaged in political dispute around the United States. In this way, subjects like stellar evolution are made relevant to social issues confronting students today. We will also consider the development of various social economies from foragers to farmers and what that has meant to the world environment and power relationships between societies. Towards its end, Global Past, Global Present examines the economic, political, social, cultural, and ethical aspects of globalization. For example, there is a widening gulf between corporate globalization and social globalization (the latter is distinguished in French as mondalization). This course provides students the opportunity to understand how corporate globalization is affecting people around the world and why there is an increasingly robust resistance to it. The course further addresses strategies for empowering individuals to be active participants in the pursuit of equity and justice in our rapidly changing world. In this way Global Past, Global Present will synthesize the important themes of the LCC.