Introduction

The PhD research journey behind this article began in 2007 as I explored more meaningful ways of engaging primary-aged students to respond and act in caring for the environment from a critical inquiry understanding of environmental education. The following quote inspired me to incorporate a universe hi/story that informs environmental values of primary-aged students:

This was my spark, challenging me to explore why and how primary-aged students need to incorporate Swimme’s message into their age-appropriate learning and understanding. There has been some valuable research about engaging students in environmental education in the evolving scientific universe hi/story as we currently know it. None addressed my educational setting, teaching in a New South Wales (NSW), city-based Catholic school that required mandatory teaching of the NSW curriculum, including a sustainability cross-curriculum priority (NSW Curriculum website, 2024). Initially, I based learning sequences around child-based “story” books, particularly visual literacy, including The Story of Everything (Layton, Reference Layton2006) and Born with a Bang: The Universe Tells Our Cosmic Story (Morgan & Books, Reference Morgan and Books2002).

It became increasingly obvious that students’ critical learning depends on access to current evidence-based multi-disciplines, inclusive of, but not limited to, astronomy, geoscience, chemistry, physics, archaeology, anthropology and history. The discovery of Christian’s writing on a universal 13.8-billion-year (BY) origin history (Reference Christian2011b) gave me initial direction. Currently, universe history-based courses are offered at the tertiary level, including the Australian National University (2024) and Montessori-based primary-level learning. The NSW curriculum includes a secondary-based elective course (2023) on universal history, using the framework of the Big History Project (2023a).

While there are many points of human and more-than-human intersectionality to consider in environmental education, this article’s parameters centre around the broader, more-than-human contexts of the emerging 13.8-BY history of the universe. Where human and more-than-human understanding intersects, there is the propensity to appreciate a wider worldview of our brief human evolution within a vast common and unfolding 13.8-BY history, as outlined in Table 1 in the Orientation section.

Table 1. An unfolding universe through the lens of Big History

The scope of this article provides a broad sweep of the cosmos, a 13.8-BY universe history, where the short timeframe of human evolution is inextricably entwined with the vast unfolding of deep-time, shared cosmic evolution. It is important to state that The Big History learning approach is not a theory but a broad teaching lens that adds billions of years to students’ education. The course creates a vehicle for a deep pedagogical infrastructure for learning and supporting student transdisciplinary learning, including current and emerging Science and History disciplinary knowledge. My PhD research explored why and how the deep-time of the universe informs sustainability for primary-aged students, including implications for future learning. For clarity, Burford’s definition (2013) for the term “transdisciplinary” is used in this article, which encompasses “across and between disciplines but also beyond them.” In this context, the emerging theoretical understandings of transdisciplinary has the potential to transform directions for environmental education, not merely through added knowledge but through the power of creative expressions of the awe and wonder of an unfolding universe (C/f Lasczik et al., Reference Lasczik, Rousell and Cutter-Mackenzie-Knowles2021).

This paper examines the effects of teaching primary-aged students the evolving scientific history of the 13.8-BY universe that integrates with their understanding of sustainability values. I aim to outline how primary students’ environmental values, skills and understanding were impacted during a 6-month pedagogical intervention. I compare my original 2016 PhD research data with fifteen 8–9-year-olds, with data from the same cohort of students in 2018. The objectives are to interpret these data through the perspectives of the scientific, historical origin story, as taught through the pedagogical framework of Big History and identified through significant literature, whole-systems theoretical framing and methodology. By comparing 2016 and 2018 student comments, I was able to analyse any reformative, possibly transformative understanding that students continued to articulate over a two-year period towards wider worldviews around sustainability. Throughout this article, I intertwine the original literature review themes that emerged from 2016 with the later 2018 interview data, namely knowledge and understanding, values, local cultural context and transdisciplinary learning within the socioecological context.

1. Orientation: the emerging Big History story

This section aims to orient the reader to the educational significance of learning a 13.8-BY unfolding universe history, adaptable for an original primary-school environmental education research study.

The above quote provides an orientation to the universe “story” through the Big History educational framework, where the multi-disciplines, including the emerging scientific and historical knowledge as we know them today, seek to explain the past, present and future possibilities of the evolving history of the universe. The Big History Project (2023a) is a free, online middle and high school course that supports students in developing a 13.8-BY timeframe categorised by a situation where conditions are just right for creating (increasing) complexity (Christian, Reference Christian2011a, Reference Christian2011b, np; Reference Christian and Weller2017b, Reference Christian2018; NSW Department of Education Curriculum, 2023, 2024). The quote’s words “curious and creative” embrace the diverse aesthetic nature of learning this deep-time story, including music, poetry, prose and art (Goodenough, Reference Goodenough2023). Aesthetic responses in astronomy or cosmology also inspire wonder and awe about our place in the universe that may incorporate astronomical images of a galaxy, nebula or the night sky (Salimpour et al., Reference Salimpour, Tytler, Eriksson and Fitzgerald2021, p. 6).

For the purpose of this paper, Salimpour (Reference Salimpour2021, p. 283) provides an important insight for educators to understand the significance of science, as opposed to scientism, in the study of the universe’s history. He distinguishes scientism as a fundamentalist, “only way” approach to knowing science. In contrast, science is vital to pursuing knowledge that is a complex, organic, cyclic process. It involves discussion, re-analysis and collaboration. “The aim is to explore, and bring the awe, wonder, hope, inspiration, and optimism of cosmology into the classroom in a way that is true to the processes and values of the discipline, and in line with contemporary science education” (p. 46).

Table 1 outlines the 13.8-BY universe story through the lens of the Big History course that I adapted for primary students. It depicts deep-time as evidenced through current relevant disciplines. Students learn this timeline within the context that the past, present and future inform each other if critical learning is to occur. As the original critical inquiry progressed, students ably discussed interrelating past/present/future, as discussed in the findings section of this article. The immense scope of deep-time and space concepts reveals a history of the universe that has the propensity to be adapted for primary students to explore environmental education critically, as evidenced in students’ comments in the analysis below. I selected Big History as a reliable transdisciplinary platform that is accessible to primary-aged students and their teachers, as they learn the emerging universe story on an updated and evidence-based online site (Big History Project, 2023a, 2023b).

2. Reviewing the entangled storyline of the literature

The relevance of primary-aged students learning the transdisciplinary universe history through the vehicle of the Big History online project (2023a) enables the use of recent literature to describe not merely a historical timeline but necessarily an entangled storyline where past/present and future hold the story together; they cannot be separated as they necessarily inform and build upon each other (Ingold, Reference Ingold2010, Reference Ingold2015).

This literature review is entangled with relevant qualitative research. Both the 2016 and 2018 data collection applied qualitative literature and methodology approaches, as evidenced below.

Three entangled criteria emerge:

1. 1. Knowledge, values and transdisciplinary learning entanglements

2. 2. Deep-time entanglements

3. 3. Narrative entanglements

3. Framing the Big History story for primary education

In adopting a deep narrative framing, I build on Mitten’s argument that we are necessarily entangled with the whole cosmos as relational beings who have no choice but to develop skills and understanding in developing these relationships for the sake of sustainability (Reference Mitten, Malone, Truong and (Eds. T.Gray2017, p. 174). An understanding of entangled deep-time is also enriched by the term co-becoming (Reference Country, Wright, Suchet-Pearson, Lloyd, Burarrwanga, Ganambarr and Maymuru2015, Reference Country, Wright, Suchet-Pearson, Lloyd, Burarrwanga, Ganambarr and Sweeney2016, Country et al., Reference Country, Suchet-Pearson, Wright, Lloyd, Tofa, Sweeney and Ganambarr2019). They describe the concept of co-becoming as depending on response-ability in terms of humans’ “ability” to “respond,” unifying past, present and future as one rather than separate entities. Within an Aboriginal shared cultural understanding, all are invited to be active partners, willingly interrelating, acting and communicating not merely for but as environmental place, as human, as more-than-human and as non-humans, entangled as one (2019, pp.686-687). It is important for primary-aged students to develop a sense of entanglements in the context of learning about cultural origin stories, empowering them to develop a wider worldview and respect in interconnecting past/present/future alongside human and more-than-human.

Figure 1 outlines the framework adopted in 2016 and 2018 primary student interviews within a local cultural setting. It correlates with Sterling’s three levels of learning, outlined in Figure 2 below, where learners embrace whole-systems thinking (Reference Sterling2003, Reference Sterling2011, Reference Sterling2016). The figure is also informed by a transdisciplinary educational model of curriculum theory and systems theory (Burford et al. Reference Burford, Hoover, Velasco, Janouskova, Jimenez, Piggot and Harder2013; Pinar, Reference Pinar2012; Stone, Reference Stone2010).

Figure 1. A revised framework for transforming the human story.

Figure 2. (a) 2016 Research method: data collection and analysis. (b) Simplified nesting of the 2018 themes.

My original framework was centred around child-based education and derives from Sterling’s theory (Reference Sterling2011, p. 25) of conformative learning “doing things better,” to reformative learning “doing better things” and the further possibility of transformative learning, “seeing things differently.” As my research was carried out in a cultural Catholic school setting, the local cultural environmental terminology of ecological awareness, ecological consciousness and possibilities for ecological conversion sit alongside Sterling’s theory. The labelling outside the circle summarises how I have further developed the framework to incorporate learning from Country et al.’s understanding of co-becoming, where transformative learning encourages opportunities for students to merge their understanding, creating new learning of a unified story.

4. Designing the Big History research story

The analysis considered the differing contexts, with the original findings from 2016, which involved a 17-week class pedagogical intervention, alongside the limited 2018 data collected from one set of small-group interviews. By 2018, students were in differing class configurations, and only 11 of the 15 original 2016 students were available for follow-up interviews.

Figure 2a summarises my original research methods, aligning the overarching theoretical model of values viewed from the perspectives of transdisciplinary, where research looks across, between and beyond disciplines (Burford et al., Reference Burford, Hoover, Velasco, Janouskova, Jimenez, Piggot and Harder2013, p. 3052) and whole-systems thinking (Lewis & Baudains, Reference Lewis and Baudains2007; Sterling, Reference Sterling2003). The figure depicts action research within an interpretive and participatory, qualitative research inquiry that suited the 8–9-year student cohort.

Figure 2b illustrates the simplified 2018 themes, due to the truncated data collection time frame of one set of child-framed interviews where students eagerly contributed to the discussions and suggestions for their future learning of the Universe story.

Both the 2016 and 2018 data collections benefited from students’ ease with each other and, surprisingly, an ongoing connection to me from 2016, although I had not been in contact with them for two years. These factors were conducive to students’ sense of empowerment in the planned semi-structured interviews, to the point that they led the discussion directions. I therefore followed their own line of discussions, which gave me a richer data collection and definite inclusion of child-centred co-researching (Ahearn et al., Reference Ahearn, Cutter-Mackenzie-Knowles, Shipway and Boyd2019; Lundy et al., Reference Lundy, McEvoy and Byrne2011).

5. Analysing the impact of the Big History story through student voices: 2016 and 2018

The evidence from my 2018 data analysis verified that students had retained an overall understanding of interconnections of transdisciplinary and socioecological education contexts of a deep-time universe metanarrative (Berry & Swimme, Reference Berry and Swimme1992; Bowers, Reference Bowers1994; Wattchow et al., Reference Wattchow, Jeanes, Alfrey, Brown, Cutter-Mackenzie and O’Connor2014). They recalled a wider worldview of space and deep-time that Phillips and Bunda describe as “Locating oneself in ancestral storying is an iterative reworking and enfolding of past, present and future” (2018, Chapter 3). Figure 3 depicts an entangled framework, adapted from Sterling (Reference Sterling2011, Reference Sterling2016), where students ably interconnected their knowledge of a 13.8-BY history to explain concerns for today and the future, seen through relevant excerpts from interviews in the following section.

Figure 3. Extending the entangled Big History storyline.

Whereas five interdependent and entangled themes emerged from the 2016 series of student in-depth interviews, the 2018 data collection was limited to one set of interviews where students recalled and built upon each other’s knowledge to jointly reconstruct the Big History story. Although local culture and values continued to permeate discussions, transdisciplinary learning and environmental values within socioecological learning were particularly evident in the 2018 interviews. Students still placed great value on their Big History learning, as evidenced by their palpable excitement and enthusiasm (Carson, Reference Carson1965; Greenwood, Reference Greenwood2020; Spyrou, Reference Spyrou2011). I was particularly impressed that strong students’ voices, evident in their original roles as active co-researchers (Green, Reference Green2015), seamlessly transferred to the 2018 interview discussions. In comparing the two data sets, four significant themes emerged in their sense of awe and wonder (see Figure 3).

1. 1. Knowledge

2. 2. Values

3. 3. Transdisciplinary learning

4. 4. Socioecological learning

6. Synthesising the findings

My data analysis verified that environmental education is addressed when teachers and students are empowered with a narrative that encompasses sociological learning. Most importantly, the cohesive Big History story enables primary students to understand the interconnectedness of the evolution of human life within the deep-time history of the universe. This understanding allows them to critique environmental actions from a child-framed perspective, alongside an understanding that everything and everyone is interconnected. This is in accordance with children’s place in education as critical reflective thinkers (Kellett, Reference Kellett2010; Spyrou, Reference Spyrou2011). Students’ immersion in the cohesive story of Big History learning also enabled them to confidently articulate new shared knowledge, including a growing sensitivity to and awe of their own interconnection and interdependence with the environment (Greenwood, Reference Greenwood2020).

My research revealed that 8–9-year-old students easily transferred the emerging scientific story of the universe of the past and present to inform both their local school and environmental values for deeper future thinking. The co-researcher student voices uphold my findings:

Students’ comments verify that the Big History of the scientific universe story empowers primary-aged students to engage in transformative, socioecological thinking for the future. These significant findings have implications for systems-wide education and curricula development to ensure environmental education is not taught as a silo discipline but through evolving opportunities for transdisciplinary-based and socioecological learning experiences. Students in the 2018 interviews retained their deep learning from the 2016 teaching programme, enabling them to reflect critically on their environmental values and to clarify their deep learning stance on sustainability, as indicated in the excerpt below.

In light of the findings presented, students shared the story and knowledge of the universe to critically inquire and evaluate their shared learning, not merely to promote a cause where educators ask not only what sustainability can do for education but also what education can do for sustainability (Scott, Reference Scott2009). The 2018 evidence is heartening at a crucial time when we need students learning to incorporate informed and shared values towards a critical understanding of human and non-human interrelationships and interdependence.

I include the following student recommendations from 2018 to validate their continuing roles as co-researchers from 2016.

The above discussion was pertinent to the findings in that the students were keen to express that they saw Big History as significant to their learning and therefore presumed it would play an important role in their high school years. Currently, that is not the case in primary schools, nor is it promoted in the Australian Curriculum (2023a). The holistic and integrated nature of the inquiry alludes to a wider breadth of study for future directions.

A significant implication from this research indicates that researchers and educators in teacher education and primary schooling need to be provided with educational models to empower them to embrace Big History learning within their local primary education setting (Ahearn & Colonna, Reference Ahearn and Colonna2021; Bates, Reference Bates2023). By linking human and more-than-human, inclusive of children’s voices, socioecological learning becomes embedded in primary education, where “everyone and everything” is at the heart of their learning. Student co-researcher voices can still unexpectedly direct a call to be involved in further research. In 2023, two original student co-researchers, now 16 years old, requested to gather students from the original study for re-interviewing, as they see Big History learning continuing to inform their high school learning and to influence their decisions around actions for sustainability. Their request is further evidence of student co-researchers’ crucial role in empowering a study’s direction.

7. Conclusion: embedding sustainability into Big History’s entangled deep-time story

My 2018 follow-up research demonstrates the power of students retaining deep knowledge, accompanied by awe and wonder (NESA, 2020) of the universe’s cohesive and interconnected history. The data comparison was affirmative, even considering that the 2018 interviews were impacted by the reshuffling of classes in the intervening two years.

My journal writing recorded students’ eagerness in the 2018 interviews was akin to the enthusiasm and excitement that Big History learning had engendered from their Year 3 learning. The authentic deep learning of 2016 empowered the same students two years later to recall deep knowledge, values and transdisciplinary learning encompassed within socioecological learning. Even though students’ specific knowledge of some of the facts and specific vocabulary was not explicit in the 2018 interviews, the students’ overall deep knowledge and spontaneous excitement in realising the importance of Big History (Christian, Reference Christian2018) were visibly tangible in both audio and visual cues.

Although my research began within a local setting, students’ new learning empowered them to view the world through an evidence-based wider lens. Environmental education is significantly enriched when viewed from the perspective of a shared universe story, inclusive of transdisciplinary and socioecological learning perspectives. My research findings challenge education systems to critically evaluate the teaching of a cohesive and interconnected history of the universe that impacts students’ critical understanding of sustainability as socioecological learners.

The 2018 data verify the 2016 findings in the context of primary education, where child-framed deep learning pedagogy informs environmental values for current and future learning (Fullan et al., Reference Fullan, Hill and Rincón-Gallardo2017). Big History connects with the goals of the Mparntwe Declaration, inclusive of “creative, innovative and resourceful [students who] solve problems in ways that draw upon a range of learning areas and disciplines and deep content knowledge” (COAGEC, 2019, p. 7). Innovative, critical inquiry learning in Big History interconnects deep knowledge with transdisciplinary learning. This invites the possibility for the learner to explore transformative, transient agency through the lens of an increasingly complex universe entangled with sustainability.

Understanding sustainability doesn’t lie solely in looking from the present for future solutions but includes an entangled past/present/future universe story. If educators are to truly comprehend the importance that values play in transdisciplinary, socioecological learning, then the universal deep-time story needs to be embedded at all levels of the education continuum, inclusive of primary-aged students.

This primary-school, transdisciplinary pedagogical intervention, in the context of the evolving scientific universe story integrated with student environmental values, is currently the only known PhD research undertaken. It has the potential to further inform environmental education practices in the primary school setting.

Science and history merge, engendering a sense of awe and wonder where a Big History story entangles past, present and future imaginings within a socioecological learning framework.

The universe is a single reality — one long sweeping, spectacular process of interconnected events … it inspires us to express our gratitude to the past by accepting a solemn and collective responsibility for the future (Rue, L., 1999).

We need to know that we all originated in the creation of the universe. We are all made from the elements formed in the dying of the stars, from the same solar system, same earth and same ancestors.