Draft: this lesson was written with AI help and has not yet been read by a human editor.
1 What your class asks
This lesson asks you to describe how science and technology are used at home and in the community, and to look at what different communities have contributed. The museum offers two examples from the Muslim world; the class adds examples from its own homes and communities. 1
Curriculum expectations, with their official codes
- A3.1 describe practical applications of science and technology concepts in their home and community, and how these applications address real-world problems
- A3.3 analyse contributions to science and technology from various communities
2 The lesson
Whose work do you use without noticing?
Think of a clock, a tool or a device at home. Ask who first made something like it, and in which community that knowledge was kept and passed on.
Go deeper
Imagine a book that teaches you how to build a machine. Al-Jazari wrote one. The TDV encyclopaedia says it has coloured drawings and letters that mark the parts. It explains the general shape first, then how to make the parts, put them together and run the machine 2. A man named Nasir al-Din Mahmud asked for the book to be written 2.
Think about it
Al-Jazari's book has drawings, letters on the parts and steps for making them. Why would that help someone who has never seen the machine?
Into the museum
- Al-Jazari: the engineer whose book has six parts, from clocks to water-raising machines.
- Ibn al-Shatir's sundial: a large marble sundial on the northern minaret of the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus.
Try this
Choose one clock or timer at home. Draw it, and next to it draw the sundial of Ibn al-Shatir described on this page. Write one thing each of them does for the people who use it.
3 Carry it further
Where this lesson leads in the museum.
4 Check yourself
Nothing here is marked or sent anywhere. It is for you.
In your own words: what does Al-Jazari, Ismail ibn al-Razzaz have to do with this lesson?
Compare with the card
An engineer of mechanical devices. Al-Jazari was an engineer who wrote a book on mechanical devices. According to the TDV Islamic Encyclopaedia, its six parts cover clocks, vessels for drinking, fountains, machines for raising water and other devices, with drawings and instructions for making and assembling them. Whose work with machines does your own community remember?
In your own words: what does Ibn al-Shatir's polar-axis sundial have to do with this lesson?
Compare with the card
Telling the time from a shadow. On the northern minaret of the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, according to David King, Ibn al-Shatir put up a large marble sundial where the time was read from the shadow of a pointer. Where in your community do people tell the time?
I can now