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 machines used in daily life and describe their purposes, and to identify the parts of mechanisms and describe the purpose of each part. The museum offers one hand-washing device from a medieval book of ingenious devices, described as a design; your class must add machines from its own daily life. 1
Curriculum expectations, with their official codes
- D2.1 identify machines that are used in daily life, and describe their purposes
- D2.2 identify the parts of various mechanisms and describe the purpose of each part
2 The lesson
What does each part do?
The expectations ask for parts and their purposes. When you meet a device, name each part and say what would stop working if you took it away.
Go deeper
A peacock pours water, a figure offers soap and another a towel: this hand-washing design is in al-Jazari's book. The record explains that when the master wants to wash, the servant brings the basin with the peacock's head facing him and stands aside as the service begins 2. Collected water raises a float and a figure offers soap; more water brings a figure with a towel 3. Used water drains through a spigot 3. The museum does not know for certain whether the machine was built 4.
Think about it
In this design the servant carries the basin while the figures offer the soap and the towel. If you were designing a hand-washing station, which jobs would you give to the machine and which to a person, and why?
Into the museum
- Al-Jazari's peacock hand-washing design: the float, the doors and the used-water spigot, stage by stage.
- Al-Jazari: the engineer who described it, and the other devices in his book.
Try this
Read about al-Jazari's peacock hand-washing design. Make a table with the peacock, the float, the two figures and the spigot, and write one job for each.
3 Check yourself
Nothing here is marked or sent anywhere. It is for you.
In your own words: what does Al-Jazari's peacock hand-washing design have to do with this lesson?
Compare with the card
A peacock, a float and two figures. A peacock pours water, one figure offers soap and another a towel: a hand-washing design in al-Jazari's book. The Cleveland Museum of Art explains the sequence: collected water raises a float, releasing a soap-bearing figure and then a towel-bearing one, and the used water drains through a spigot. The museum does not know for certain whether the machine was ever built. Which part does which job?
I can now
Notes
- 1. Ontario Ministry of Education, The Ontario Curriculum: Science and Technology, Grades 1–8 (2022)
- 2. Al-Jazari — Donald Hill translation1974, p.149
- 3. Peacock hand-washing device and verso — Cleveland 1945.383, verso catalogue
- 4. Peacock hand-washing device and verso — Cleveland 1945.383, recto catalogue