Little Big History at Oceanside High School

The smallest objects have a history that goes back to the Big Bang.

Ninth graders at Oceanside High School showed that to the community at Little Big History Night last Thursday. Big History connects the origins of the universe to the modern world through different disciplines and topics. For their final project, students picked any object and told its history through a combination of chemistry, anthropology, biology and other subjects. So a project on dogs becomes a history of how the universe developed life, how the first societies developed agriculture and then how that created the need for domesticated dogs, leading to the dogs we know today. Bill Gates and historian David Christian developed the original idea for the curriculum, which is practiced in schools worldwide.

“One of the things students took out of this experience is understanding that history is not a static linear timeline,” said Mitch Bickman, the supervisor of the social studies department. “In actuality it’s a web of infinite connections acting over millennia and billions of years to create everything we’ve ever known.”

This is the second year Oceanside has had this class and the first year it was offered to the all of the ninth grade regents students. Out of the about 350 students taking the course this year, 68 were picked as the best of their class sections and got to display their projects in the cafeteria. Teachers and staff announced the overall winners that night.

Gina Pepe won first place for her project on the history of sugar. “I learned that sugar started from the riverbanks in Papa New Guinea and sugarcane,” she said. “And during the age of exploration, that people in India discovered how to domesticate and extract it so that it can be used today. And another interesting fact I really liked was that sugar is really, really addictive and it’s almost as addictive as cocaine… It was a really fun project to do and I really enjoyed it.”

Coming in second, third and fourth place respectively were Maggie McGarry for her history of the American flag, Elissa Heydemann for her history of coffee and Lauren Bouderau for her history of cupcakes.

Ariana Perez won “Most Creative Display” for her history of makeup. “I find it to be art on someone’s face,” she said of her subject. She and her father made a wooden table for the display, which was set up like a vanity. She said she learned that in the past, some makeup was unsafe and made its wearers go blind.

Teachers also invited the public to their upcoming lecture on Big History at the Oceanside Library on June 9 at 7 p.m.