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 different ways an object can move, to identify the basic kinds of simple machine, and to describe how they are used in daily life to make tasks easier. The museum links two water machines that show a lever and a wheel and axle; your class will find the other simple machines. 1
Curriculum expectations, with their official codes
- D2.1 describe different ways an object can move
- D2.3 identify the six basic types of simple machines: lever, inclined plane, wedge, pulley, wheel and axle, and screw
- D2.4 describe ways in which each type of simple machine is used in daily life to make tasks easier
2 The lesson
What kinds of movement can you see?
Watch a machine or a toy. Describe each movement you see, for example turning, going back and forth, or going up and down.
Which simple machine is at work?
Compare what you see with the list of simple machines in the expectation. Say which ones appear, and how each makes the task easier.
Go deeper
Al-Jazari first tells you what a visitor would see: a pool, a pillar, a cow, a wheel and coloured jars 2. The cow seems to go round and turn the lifter, but it is hollow wood, carried by a lever with its hooves clear of the platform. Water drives the machine 3. In a room under the floor, water passes over a wheel, and the movement goes upward 3. The shaft turns the cow, not the reverse 2.
Think about it
The cow looks as if it turns the lifter, but the shaft turns the cow. Think of a toy or a machine that moves. How could you find out what really makes it move, and why is looking at the outside not enough?
Into the museum
- The hidden-drive water lifter: a pool whose cow is carried round while jars lift water.
- The double-piston pump: water turns a wheel and gears, and the piston rods move back and forth.
- Al-Jazari: the engineer who described both machines.
Try this
Read the cards on the hidden-drive water lifter and on the double-piston pump. Draw each machine and label every part that turns, every part that goes back and forth, and every lever.
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's hidden-drive water lifter have to do with this lesson?
Compare with the card
The cow that does not pull. In one of al-Jazari's machines, flowing water turns a wheel and axle. A lever carries a lightweight wooden cow. Where do you see a lever or a wheel and axle at work?
In your own words: what does Al-Jazari's waterwheel-driven double-piston pump have to do with this lesson?
Compare with the card
From turning to back and forth. TDV describes al-Jazari's pump with two pistons: flowing water turns a wheel, and the turning becomes back-and-forth motion in the piston rods. How many different kinds of movement can you name in this one machine?
I can now