According to the site, "We aim to make big history broadly available in classrooms and online – reaching anyone curious about how it all fits together. We believe big history will:
* Foster a greater love of learning by addressing a fundamental shortcoming in modern education: compartmentalization. Will big history help students understand and appreciate each area of study more deeply by providing a coherent narrative that links different areas of knowledge within a single course?
* Significantly increase interest in science among high school students by highlighting the many links between scientific disciplines and the humanities. By demystifying what it takes to be good at science, will big history help attract a new breed of potential scientists?
* Deliver on the promise of online learning by delivering better student outcomes at scale. Will big history’s interdisciplinary nature and evocative subject matter, coupled with a cutting-edge software design, set a new benchmark for how technology can be applied to real learning?"
"Big history will roll out in stages designed to help us develop the syllabus and evaluate its effects across a broad set of students and schools before we make it available for free online to all interested educators and students.
While we expect all types of students can enjoy and draw value from the course, we will initially design the course for high school students and specifically Grade 9. We believe students at this level have sufficient intellectual maturity to reckon with the broad range of scientific and historical concepts introduced in the course. We also believe that reaching students during the early stages of their high school education can influence their interest in school and particular disciplines, while also developing critical thinking skills that can heighten their performance throughout high school and beyond."