2.1. Knowledge, values and transdisciplinary learning entanglements

Relevant sections from my original study (Ahearn, Reference Ahearn2019) continue to resonate with the extent that deep knowledge of the cohesive, ever-changing, scientific universe story, told through Big History (2023a, 2023b), could inform primary students’ knowledge and values in environmental education (Christian, Reference Christian2018). This echoes the 2016 Incheon Declaration (UNESCO) that advocates education for sustainable development and global citizenship education through knowledge and values-based education in its 2015–2030 vision.

Sustainability is one of the three mandatory cross-curriculum priorities embedded in the Australian Curriculum, alongside values and ethics framing capabilities (ACARA, 2022, 2023a). However, Boyd (Reference Boyd2019, p. 113) points out that although the current NSW Education Curriculum (NESA, 2023) lauds cross-curriculum priorities, paradoxically, it places an emphasis on the importance of organising subjects into specific disciplines. NESA’s siloed stance on learning disciplines questions 21st-century learning within its three-dimensional curriculum model (ACARA, 2023a). The question lingers: how can two of the model’s three dimensions, namely, cross-curriculum priorities and general capabilities, be incorporated into all areas of the third dimension, learning areas, without transdisciplinary learning across the curriculum (Bates, Reference Bates2023, pp. 3–4; Salter & Maxwell, Reference Salter and Maxwell2020).

The Australian Curriculum (ACARA, 2023b) is underpinned by the Alice Springs (Mparntwe) Education Declaration (Council of Australian Governments Education Council [COAGEC], 2019), where students are “able to make sense of their world and think about how things have become the way they are” (p. 5). Transdisciplinary learning answers this call, requiring an interrelationship of deep-time entanglements of the “socio” as human and non-human, alongside entangled living and non-living ecological environments (Cutter-Mackenzie-Knowles et al. Reference Cutter-Mackenzie-Knowles, Lasczik, Wilks, Logan, Turner and Boyd2019, p. 4; Boyd, Reference Boyd2019, p. 101).

Savage and Drake (Reference Savage and Drake2016) see transdisciplinary learning as helping students acquire wider worldviews. This is in keeping with Big History’s storyline that transverses multiple disciplines and relies on critical thinking skills grounded in students applying their understanding of evidence, authority, logic and their own intuition (Big History Project, 2023a):

The story thread woven through the research transcends the borders of differing cultural and religious stories, respectfully offering a wider worldview of the cosmos that converges logic, faith and values (Benjamin, Reference Benjamin2009, p. 3). The religious and cultural aspects were important components for me to address the appropriateness of the study for the Catholic school involved. Although Pope Francis I, Suzuki and Haraway speak and write from differing academic/religious/cultural perspectives, they offer similar viewpoints that are important to address a socially and ecologically just society: Pope Francis I (Francis, Reference Francis2015) calls for integrating knowledge into a broader vision of reality where “we are part of nature, included in it and thus in constant interaction with it.” The secular words of Suzuki call for social justice, hunger, poverty and environmental issues to “never [be] split into silos - they’re all together” (ABC National Radio, Suzuki, Reference Suzuki2016, 39:00). In her Reference Haraway1997 writing, Haraway explains this wider worldview as learning to use the past to inform our present actions as we plan for a just future, remembering “that we might have been otherwise, and might yet be” (p. 22).

Intermingling past/present/future calls for deep knowledge within disciplines and the necessary inquiry-learning skills (Murdoch, Reference Murdoch2006). This requires a transdisciplinary, whole-systems approach to student learning (UN, no 15. 2020; Snaza & Weaver, Reference Snaza, Weaver, Snaza and Weaver2015; Sterling, Reference Sterling2011, p. 5).

2.2. Deep-time entanglements

Understanding a knotted and entangled deep-time is imperative in validating the Big History Project (2023a). The concept of entangled and relational deep-time is integral in understanding holistic socioecological education, beyond anthropocentric learning, to encompass human-environmental relationships from past/present/future interdisciplinary perspectives (Crumley, Laparidou, Ramsey & Rosen Reference Crumley, Laparidou, Ramsey and Rosen2015, p. 1721). Deep-time engages the learner in a deep knowledge of key chronological events which creates the basis for a deeper understanding of new information (Delgado, Reference Delgado2014, p. 2).

Society’s contemporary understanding of current environmental issues and anthropocentric responses to future sustainability issues would benefit from deep history learning (Irvine, Reference Irvine2014, p. 158), where past and present are necessarily entangled in the “unifying concept of the Anthropocene in the Longue Durée” (Crumley et al., Reference Crumley, Laparidou, Ramsey and Rosen2015, p. 1723). Similarly, Ingold’s vision of past/present/future entwines and entangles lines so there is no loss of dignity and rights for human and non-human (Ingold, Reference Ingold2015, pp. 3–4). His stance aligns with Big History learning, where students are empowered to resonate in and with the evolving universe, entangling past/present/future, as will be noted in the data findings section of this article.

Griffiths (Reference Griffiths2018) explores a linear chronology of deep-time alongside the Australian Indigenous understanding of “Dreaming” as an active and continuous past, present and future, where stories of continuity and change are interwoven. He links both as being concerned with origins and dimensions of space and time that destabilise the human story from conventional timelines into non-human realm and metaphor (p. 31). Griffiths likens this to Big History (2018, Epilogue), citing the historian David Christian’s observation (Reference Christian2011a, Reference Christian2011b) that both worldviews are foundational in mapping time at all scales. Arabena (2015) advocates merging Indigenous philosophical wisdom and traditions with scientific and ethical understandings of modern thought. This inclusive perspective encourages interconnectivity in learning that cultural origin stories should be respected and provide answers to a particular culture’s origins (See https://www.oerproject.com/Big-History/Unit-1/1-2-Origin-Stories). Deep-time in the Big History Project (2023a) emphasises critical inquiry learning through developing a deep-time/space framework, intertwining Indigenous oral and written texts of First Nations’ origin stories and their significance as first astronomers (Bohensky & Maru, Reference Bohensky and Maru2011).

2.3. Narrative entanglements through critical inquiry

Students embrace deep-time narratives from rich transdisciplinary perspectives (Jefferson & Anderson, Reference Jefferson and Anderson2021), using deep knowledge and local and societal values. Critical inquiry pedagogy promotes the integration of general capabilities and the cross-curriculum priorities of the current Australian Curriculum (2023b). When viewed from this orientation, grand narratives allow for their potential to be deconstructed and re-ordered as new knowledge and understanding emerge. Phillips and Bunda (Reference Phillips and Bunda2018) view storying as engaging in analytical thinking, selecting and interpreting data and making meaning through theory and crafting stories. The Mparntwe Declaration validates this further when its preamble advocates students “need to deal with information abundance and navigate questions of trust and authenticity. They need flexibility, resilience, creativity, and the ability and drive to keep learning throughout their lives” (COAGEC, 2019 , p. 3). Rodriguez (Reference Rodriguez2002) views narrative within the propensity to intertwine and to “fundamentally alter our relation to the world, our relation to others and our relation to our humanity” (p. 6). The scientific universe origin story merges the above viewpoints, where environmental education perspectives are interconnected with an entire 13.8-BY evolving history of the universe. Interconnecting new evidence from across all disciplines verifies “how the viewpoints of many different scholars can be integrated for a better understanding of a topic” (Big History Project, 2023b, p. 2).

Barad emphasises that “scenes never rest, but are reconfigured within, dispersed across and threaded through one another” (2010, p. 240). Past, present and emerging knowledge and wisdom are all richer within an entangled and knotted grand narrative (Barad, Reference Barad2010; Ingold, Reference Ingold2010). Although the Mparntwe document (COAGEC, 2019, p. 3) calls for students to understand the ways environmental, social and economic systems interact based on present and future impacts, it overlooks the past, where students can incorporate a deep-time story through the Australian Curriculum (ACARA, 2023b).

An entangled Big History, encompassing past/present/future in an evolving complex narrative, counteracts its critics who question it as a closed universe narrative (Fleming, Reference Fleming2015; Jackson & Finn, Reference Jackson and Finn2015). In this sense, a Big History story that changes with new evidence “embraces transience in everything” (Selby, Reference Selby2006, p. 263) and overcomes differing cultural and political stances in a fragmented chronology of time.

5.1. Knowledge: The extent the emerging story of the universe, taught through the vehicle of Big History, contributed to informing students’ critical knowledge

The selected interview excerpts demonstrate students’ access to Big History learning. The 2018 data validated that students enthusiastically accessed specific knowledge from 2016 through discussions of shared enjoyable activities and learning experiences. The original 2016 students’ growth in knowledge and use of appropriate vocabulary is endorsed alongside the deep knowledge students enthusiastically recalled two years later through shared discussion of the Big History story. The four Claim testers (authority, evidence, logic and intuition), mentioned within the next few extracts, were taught to students as part of the Big History course (Big History Project, 2023a) to help them validate information as critical inquiry learners and to empower them in their co-researching roles. This agrees with the call of the Mparntwe Declaration (COAGEC, 2019, p. 3) for flexibility, resilience and creativity needed to navigate questions of trust and authenticity.

In both recorded excerpts, the students’ enthusiasm and delight were evident through their ability to access and confidently share their learning. In 2018, they jointly recalled their previous knowledge of Big History to explain their understanding of the universe.

Likewise, the next comments show students’ expanded knowledge of the universe, creating a meaningful platform for informed, child-framed discussions.

The analysed data from 2016 and 2018 verified that students accessed and maintained increasingly complex knowledge and common vocabulary expressed through Big History. This empowered students to explain the importance of the cohesive Big History story (Christian, Reference Christian2017a), as opposed to the fragmented knowledge (Vismara, Reference Vismara2019) they verbalised before the 2016 teaching and learning intervention.

Synthesising knowledge into a wider worldview opened the possibility of transformative environmental education learning. Imogen’s use of “we” in the following extract highlighted growth in critical knowledge and transformed thinking of nature and humans as interrelated.

Jack, likewise, in 2018, used his knowledge of Big History to explain his thinking about the future: When you grow up, you can study (the future) and maybe add new information. The evidence, that students gained a wider worldview of their place in the universe, is palpable in the above statements, where past “we” and future “you” have become part of their present understanding of who they are and may become.

The 2018 conversations below are examples of the animated student-led discussions as they excitedly recalled learning activities from 2016 that informed their understanding of Big History within the framing of sustainability for the future.

Students enthusiastically engaged with each other to link any clues from their discussion. This relates well to my journal entry (July 2018) where I recorded that the classroom teacher was amazed at the reception I received from the students when they saw me at the classroom door. They were excitedly trying to tell her I had taught them about the universe in 2016 while greeting me at the same time. When I mentioned I would like to interview them again, they were very eager to discuss the value of learning Big History and to contribute their ongoing suggestions for its place and value in primary education.

5.2. Values: The extent that environmental education values, particularly in the context of local cultural school values, were interpreted by students through the lens of Big History

From the outset of the 2016 excerpts, students were not disturbed by the scientific evidence presented in Big History; rather, they readily correlated the evidence with a greater sense of awe and wonder at the grander and more complex unfolding of the universe.

The growth in students’ ability to correlate their known cultural Catholic story and local school values to the Big History story was evident in 2018 student comments. Even though there had been no teaching of Big History between those years, their local culture and values continued to inform their understanding of sustainability. The importance of analysing values at the local school level (Podger et al., Reference Podger, Velasco, Luna, Burford and Harder2013; Somekh & Zeichner, Reference Somekh and Zeichner2009) was appropriate to the child-framed methodological basis of my research. Students voluntarily connected those values to Big History learning while also including the term “sustainable” in their discussions within the context of student-appropriate understanding.

The above comments validate Dahl’s appeal (Reference Dahl2012) to incorporate local vocabulary in articulating values, where the children integrated their familiar local values with the deep-time perspective of the cohesive Big History learning story.

5.3. Transdisciplinary Learning: The extent of impacts on students’ environmental education values

Transdisciplinary learning enriched students’ understanding of environmental education values when nested in the emerging Big History narrative, their local culture and local school values. In the following child-framed dialogue, the children named the limits of learning subjects in “silos” and highlighted their move away from an anthropocentric worldview.

Student conversations validated the significance of transdisciplinary skills in broadening their worldviews away from anthropocentric thinking through the Big History learning framework. This became apparent as other students also articulated the need to interconnect subjects to deepen understanding across subject areas.

The student comments align with the opportunities for children of varying academic abilities to engage in inquiry learning at their own level of understanding, where they were empowered to see themselves as co-learners with the teachers (Mertler, Reference Mertler2008, p. 25; Green, Reference Green2015). Transdisciplinary skills in Big History are powerful in allowing students to interconnect and to apply their understanding to the wonder of the universe’s increasing complexity.

5.4. Socioecological Learner: The evidence for conformative, reformative and transformative socioecological learning process

The possibility of an emerging socioecological learner involves a conformative, reformative and transformative learning process integrated into the emerging Big History narrative, as explained and illustrated previously in Figure 1.

As noted by Snaza et al. (Reference Snaza, Weaver, Snaza and Weaver2015), limited interactions with society and the environment call into question how transformative learning can occur when it is only structured around the human; a deep-time perspective of 13.8 BY integrates more-than-human and human. The evidence I collected is in keeping with the stance the Big History Project promotes (2023a), which empowers children to integrate socioecological learning through a wide range of academic disciplines informing each other (Boyd, Reference Boyd2019; Cutter-Mackenzie-Knowles et al., Reference Cutter-Mackenzie-Knowles, Lasczik, Wilks, Logan, Turner and Boyd2019). Theo expressed a similar line of thought when he talked about the problem of isolating information:

The sustainability cross-curriculum priority (2023) is “incorporated through learning area content … not separate learning areas or subjects” (ACARA. 2023a). The 2016 learning journey began as teacher-initiated, yet as the intervention progressed, the children took ownership as active learners, describing themselves as “big historians.” Aidan commented on the last day of school:

Aidan’s comments align to the socioecological learner concept (Boyd, Reference Boyd2019) and the Australian Education for Sustainability Alliance Project (Reference for Sustainability Alliance2014), which calls for learning that embraces comprehension, complexity, uncertainty and risk that can be applied to future sustainability.

The following extracts demonstrate that students placed themselves within the larger universe history, which is in keeping with the concept that the transformation of the learner can empower socioecological thinking (Sterling 2009, Reference Sterling2016; Boyd, Reference Boyd2019).

In 2016, students’ thinking encompassed humans and the environment, where we have to treat the earth how we want to be treated as well. The discussion in 2018 around the evolution of early humans and agriculture followed similar thinking, where we could grow crops and get food, leading to the observation that if we’re not sustainable now, it would affect our future.

An overall finding in analysing the socioecological learner was that a cohesive deep-time story empowers students to embrace past, present and future within shared language and critical inquiry evaluation techniques. Students critically examined the inclusiveness of all that is human and non-human in the universe. The following excerpt encapsulates the sense that socioecological learning can happen for any student. The insightful response comes from a child who initially showed little awareness of the interconnectedness of human and non-human. His simple words echo Delors’ four pillars of learning (Reference Delors1996): “learning to know,” “learning to do,” “learning to live together” and “learning to be.”

Aaron’s 2016 observation, echoed by Charlie and Mia in 2018, is in keeping with Sterling’s call (Reference Sterling2003, 2008) that conformative and reformative learning may lead to the possibility of transforming how we perceive whole systems and worldviews. Students gained a powerful voice through Big History to articulate their learning in their own child-appropriate language from their new knowledge and understanding, cultural origins, values and transdisciplinary learning.