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 identify sources of water in natural and built environments. The museum links ways people in the past brought water to where it was needed: a public fountain, a tunnel and a well machine. Your class will name the natural sources, such as lakes and rivers, and look at the water around your own school. 1
Curriculum expectations, with their official codes
- E2.2 identify sources of water in the natural and built environments
2 Before you start
A thought to carry into the lesson.
3 The lesson
Where does the water here come from?
Trace the water you use at school or at home back to where it starts. Say which part of the way is natural and which part people built.
What do people build to reach water?
Look for wells, pipes, tunnels, tanks or machines. For each one, say what source of water it reaches.
Go deeper
A qanat is a gently sloping tunnel that brings water out by gravity, with vertical shafts for working, access and maintenance 2. Abu Bakr al-Karaji describes levels and surveying procedures in a manual that follows water from the search for it to maintenance and handover 3. A later copy shows a level: a rectangular frame, two raised sight fittings, a triangle and a string ending in a weight 4.
Think about it
A qanat slopes gently down so that water comes out by gravity. What would happen to the water if the tunnel climbed uphill instead, and why?
Into the museum
- The sabil: the public water fountain, cared for in its siting and building and kept working by many endowments.
- Al-Karaji's levelling and tunnel-alignment methods: how a route for water is chosen and checked.
- The animal-powered scoop water-lifter: a machine for raising water from a well or pool with a scoop.
Try this
Read the cards on the sabil, al-Karaji's levelling and tunnel-alignment methods and the animal-powered scoop water-lifter. Make a chart with two columns, natural sources and built ways of reaching them, and place what you find in each.
4 Carry it further
Where this lesson leads in the museum.
5 Check yourself
Nothing here is marked or sent anywhere. It is for you.
In your own words: what does Sabil (public water fountain) have to do with this lesson?
Compare with the card
A fountain given to everyone. Al-Haddad describes the sabil as a charitable building endowed to give people fresh water every day all year round. He says sabils drew water from wells, pools and springs, or from rain and floods through channels or pipes hidden in walls, and that some had one or two cisterns. Which of these sources of water can you find near your school?
In your own words: what does Al-Karaji's levelling and tunnel-alignment methods have to do with this lesson?
Compare with the card
A tunnel that brings water out. Ataie-Ashtiani and Simmons describe a qanat as a gently sloping underground tunnel that brings water out by gravity, so the water runs out downhill, with vertical shafts (straight holes down from the ground) for working, access and maintenance. Al-Karaji wrote a manual on levels and on lining up such a tunnel. Why must the route of such a tunnel be chosen and checked?
I can now
Notes
- 1. Ontario Ministry of Education, The Ontario Curriculum: Science and Technology, Grades 1–8 (2022)
- 2. Karaji and The Extraction of Hidden Waters — Ataie-Ashtiani and Simmons, pp.762–763
- 3. Karaji and The Extraction of Hidden Waters — Ataie-Ashtiani and Simmons, pp.763–768
- 4. Extraction of Hidden Waters — Penn LJS399, f.26r