The IB collaborates with the Big History Project
Exciting new developments are underway as we collaborate with the Big History Project. The Project is sponsored by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and calls itself “A social studies course that runs on jet fuel.”
The Big History Project has two goals; to spur an interdisciplinary approach to teaching history, and establish a model and an educational standard for online curriculum programmes. Currently, 1500, schools worldwide offer the Project’s flexible online curriculum. With an interdisciplinary focus, an inquiry-based approach, and a concept-driven curriculum, there are several common features that align well with the IB.
The IB aims to pilot a Middle Years Programme (MYP) Big History course in 2018 with the goal of subsequently larger deployments in the next few years. Once IB World Schools and teachers are identified for the pilot, they will be invited to register on the Big History website and participate in the online training before their school year is over in 2017.
In  we will invite our IB community to an MYP Big History Conference to introduce the Big History Project and engage them in the opportunities presented by a wider roll out of the MYP Big History course.
Look out for presentations at all three IB Global Conferences in 2017 about our plans for a Middle Years Programme Big History course.