Who has added to science and technology?

This lesson asks you to investigate how science and technology can work with other school subjects on real-world problems, and to analyse what various communities have contributed to science and technology. The museum links only examples from Muslim scholars; your class will add contributions from other communities. ¹

Look at the first expectation. Name a real problem, the two subjects used on it, and what each one added that the other could not.

The second expectation asks you to analyse contributions from various communities. For each contribution, ask who made it, for whom, and what it made possible.

Muhammad, Ahmad and al-Hasan were the sons of Musa ibn Shakir, the Banu Musa. Ibn al-Nadim describes them as among those who pursued the ancient sciences to the utmost. They sent to the land of the Romans for someone to bring them books, and brought translators from distant regions with generous pay. The sciences that dominated them were geometry, mechanical devices, motion, music and astronomy ². The record gives no reason in their own words, but it shows that they spent generously on books.

The Banu Musa paid generously for books and for translators. Why does that help the people who come after them to learn?

• The Banu Musa: three sons of Musa ibn Shakir, whose books include Ahmad's "Mechanical Devices".
• Al-Karaji: a mathematician and engineer who wrote about levelling and aligning water tunnels.
• Al-Jazari: an engineer who wrote a book on mechanical devices.

Read the cards on the Banu Musa, al-Karaji and al-Jazari. Make a table with three columns: the person or family, the problem they worked on, and the subjects they used.