The First Great Lesson –
The Story of the Universe

 

 

You will need:

1. long table and large black cloth to cover it with.

2. tape recorder/CD player with quiet music e.g. "Morning" from Grieg’s "Peer Gynt" or harp music

3. black balloon - blown up and filled with a 3 or 4 teaspoonfuls of talc. Needle to pop balloon with.

4. sugar in container, spoon and pestle and mortar

5. candle and matches (or ultra-bright torch)

6. bowl of water, and talc in shaker

6. box of sugar lumps

7. metre stick or longest of long roads and grains of sugar

8. spray bottle of perfume

9. ice cubes in container

10. 3 pots: 1 with colour water or vinegar, 1 with light oil (e.g. vegetable oil) and one with honey or treacle, plus empty pot with lid/stopper

11. model volcano loaded with sodium bicarbonate, to which vinegar mixed with red food colouring are added later

12. land, air and water tray

 

What to do:

Before you start arrange items on table from left to right in the order shown above, and cover with cloth. Get the children to collect chairs and come and sit in a semi-circle in front of the long table. Stand with your back to the long table. It may help if you have another smaller table in front of you to demonstrate on. As you refer to each item on the table, turn back the cloth..

"Today I’m going to tell you a story. It’s a really great story – the story of how the Universe came into being. Now the Universe is not just our world, but space and outer space – the planets such as Mars and Jupiter and everything around us. What did you see on your way to school this morning? (cars, buses, trees, people – yes they are all part of the Universe). What do you see when you look out of the windows? (fields, flowers etc yes they are part of the Universe.) But the Universe did not always exist. The things that we see now have not always been there.

(Dim the lights and put on the music. Take the balloon and needle and hold them behind your back)

"Once there was nothing, nothing at all. There were no trees and no grass, no flowers and no land. No hills, mountains or valleys, no rivers or streams. There were no seas and no fish or sea creatures. There were animals. There were no dinosaurs or hairy mammoths. There were no people upon the earth. There was no sky and no space, and no stars, sun and moon. There was no dark and no light. There was nothing, nothing at all. (Turn off quiet music)

"Then (burst of the balloon) there was a great explosion. It was a stronger, more forceful explosion than you can ever imagine. We call this explosion "The Big Bang". Out of nothing had become something. Where this something had come from, nobody knows. How it had been made, nobody knows. Why it had been made, nobody knows. It is a complete mystery. It appeared suddenly and was smaller than an atom. (Now an atom is far, far smaller than this grain of sugar). I would like one of you to come and grind this sugar even smaller (give child pestle and mortar). The thing that appeared was even smaller than one little grain of sugar powder. It was smaller than an atom. If we look at an atom with a magnifying glass, it is so small that we cannot see it. The thing that appeared was incredibly hot, far hotter than the hottest fire or even the Sun. It grew faster than you imagine, and as it grew it burst open and caused this tremendous explosion because all the Universe had been packed into that teeny, tiny space or thing.

"At the same time there was a great light, which was also incredibly hot (light the candle or bright torch). This candle would be like darkness compared with that great light. Think of the brightest light you know (lighthouse, car lamps etc). Even the light from a lighthouse or the Sun would have been like darkness compared with this great light."

"The explosion was very, very, very hot, and the universe got bigger and bigger. It was full of tiny little specks or particles which we call electrons and quarks. These tiny specks flew around so fast, that they were always smashing into each other and being destroyed."

"The Universe carried on getting bigger and bigger and then it started to cool down. This took thousands of years to happen, and after about 100,000 years tiny particles called protons and neutrons had been made from the little bits which had survived. These joined up with the electrons to make atoms.

"Some of the particles and atoms stuck together and made bigger lumps. (Scatter very small amount of talc on water and show how it clumps together.) Then the clumps joined together to make even bigger lumps (show the sugar cube,) and the lumps joined together to make even bigger lumps still (heap lumps on top of each other).

"Some of the lumps were so incredibly big and heavy that their great weight started off a big ‘fire’. These fires were the first stars. So a billion years after the Big Bang there were millions and billions and trillions of stars. There were so many stars that if each grain was a star, and we piled all these grains of sugar on top of each other they would reach 200 of these metre sticks. And 200 metres of grains of sugar over the whole earth would be how many stars there were. (grains and metre stick)

"But the stars did not last forever. They ran out of power or fuel, which we call hydrogen. Some stars just fizzled out, but others died with a huge explosion. Tiny pieces of the star that exploded made a big space cloud of dust, and when this dust cooled down again tiny little bits stuck together into lumps. This time the big lumps became the Sun. Now the universe had a sun."

"Not everything in the big space cloud went to make up the Sun. There was some of it left over, and all these tiny little bits joined together to make the Earth that we live on. To start with the little bits were flying around all over the place. When the little bits are really tiny so that you cannot see thing and are flying around in the air like that they are called a gas." (demonstration - take lid off bottle of perfume, and let children smell. Point out that what is in the air is an invisible gas - we can smell it, but we cannot see it, because the pieces are so tiny)

"Some of the gases turned into liquids as they cooled down. (When it is a very cold day, perhaps you have seen water running down the windows. This is because a gas or the air has turned into a liquid, because it has met the cold window and cooled down)."

"Then when some of the liquids got cold they turned into solids. (Demonstration of ice cubes). Do you remember when we made ice cubes last term? We started off with a liquid, which was water, and made it cold in the freezer. Then it turned into a solid. This is what happened on the Earth. Some of the liquids turned into solids.

 

"So now there were solids, liquids and gases on the earth. They were whirling around and getting mixed up together. It was as though they were doing a great dance. Let’s see what happens when we mix solids, liquids and gases together. (Demonstration - honey, water and oil - when the solids , liquids and gases were all mixed together (pour into one contained with lid, shake vigorously) Look the heavy stuff has gone to the bottom, the water has gone to the middle, and the oil is floating on top.)

"That is what happened to the Earth we live on. As the solids, liquids and gases whirled around the heavy bits sunk down and made the land. Now there was land. Some pieces sunk into the centre of the Earth, where it was very, very hot. Even today the middle of our Earth is very hot. Sometimes even the rock melts because it is so hot and comes up out of the earth like a liquid. When this happens there are earthquakes or we see a volcano erupting. Let me show you what happens. (Demonstration of a volcano)

Once the solids had settled down and formed the land, the liquids started to settle down on top of the land and they made the seas and the oceans. Then the gases stayed whirling around on top of the land and water, and they made the air. So now there was the planet Earth made up of land, air and water. (Show pots of land, air and water – remind children that when they were in the nursery classroom they learned about the world being made of land, air and water).

"Gradually the earth started to calm down and cool down, but there were still great storms and winds which would have blown fast enough to lift whole hills! But now the Earth was ready for life to appear – but that is the next great story."

Tips:

N.B. Traditionally the Great Lessons were followed by a couple of weeks known as "the Rest", when the teacher allowed time for the ideas to settle, then talk to the children about the story, what parts they enjoyed most. The teacher may give some "Key Lessons" to stimulate the children’s interest.

The whole point is to stimulate the children’s interest and imagination, and spark off individual research into some of the topics involved in the Great Lesson.

The Five Great Lessons are part of a "spiral curriculum", and are repeated each year in the Montessori Primary School. Each year the same child takes something different from the story and finds a different facet to explore.

With Upper Primary children more detail is added: