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Dan Savage
10364665
ECUR 421
For: Tim Molnar and my peers in 421
March 23rd, 2010
Knowledge of Science and Tech. Development in Ancient China
Rationale:
! In order to properly teach science, I believe that teachers should have some
knowledge of what science is and of its history. I have also found in talking with people
about East Asia that many people are not very familiar with that area of the world. I
Perspectives class had much knowledge about the history of science in this part of the
world.
! The first question that should be asked has been put forward by Snively and
Corsiglia (2001). They ask “is science an exclusive invention of Europeans, or have
scientific ways of thinking and viable bodies of scientific knowledge emerged in other
cultures?” (p. 8). This is an important question to ask, and it seems to come to a
difference of definitions. You can define science in a very restrictive way that leads to
only the activities of a small number of Europeans over the last couple hundred years or
so to count as science. On the other hand you can define science in a much more
inclusive way, that allows it to be more of a human activity for knowledge gathering and
testing that has occurred since pre-history. Joseph Needham seems to side with the
more open definition of science: “[M]odern science was not the only sort of science.
Science had been growing up throughout the ancient and medieval times, in all
civilizations. All of them had their great achievements, and the knowledge gained by the
science of the ancients and the people of the Middle Ages all flowed into modern
science like rivers flow into the sea” (Needham, 1982, pg. 64). Of course, it might be
interesting to see who is considered a civilization here, and who might be left out. That
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Knowledge of Science and Tech. Development in Ancient China
! It becomes more and more difficult to suggest that ancient cultures did not
practice science or collect scientific knowledge the more you learn about the kinds of
things that were accomplished and how they were done. The second question is should
we care? Does it matter to a high school science teacher what happened in other areas
of the world in the area of science many centuries ago? For a long time many
Europeans have been very ignorant of the world beyond their own, and while they may
have traveled across the globe and happily pillaged the lands they encountered, they
have not often considered the knowledge and pursuits of others to be of equal value.
This has been seen directly in the area of knowledge about science. Needham (1982)
wrote the following about the initial stages of his research into the scientific
accomplishments of the ancient Chinese for an exhibit for the Ontario Science Center:
“professional sinologists told us that there was nothing to be gained by such studies as
we intended to pursue; China, they said, was and had always been a land of peasant-
It did not take us very long to appreciate the complete falsity of this attitude” (pg. 64).
The attitude mentioned here, that China has never offered anything useful to science is
just not true, and I believe it is important for us as teachers to help dispel these kinds of
misguided notions. It is important for our students to know that science is not just
European Modern Science, and that many of the things we take for granted were
discovered and developed in other parts of the world, and came to Europeans later.
This is particularly true of the ancient Chinese, who produced a great amount of very
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Knowledge of Science and Tech. Development in Ancient China
high quality knowledge in a number of areas, and who were for a number of centuries
much more “advanced” in terms of technology and scientific knowledge than Europe.
! Essentially, I feel that it is our duty as science teachers to try to give our students
as accurate a picture of the history of science as we can (keeping in mind time and topic
large prerequisite for providing this accurate picture is having some knowledge of the
history ourselves. Therefore, the purpose of this project is to attempt to get a feel for the
amount of knowledge that other future science teachers have in this area, whether they
feel it is an important thing to know about, and how confident they are that they could
learn more. A survey was produced and responses collected, and the results will be
discussed. The results will not be tested statistically, because the information gathered
was mainly meant to be a general feel for the attitudes and perceptions of the class. It is
meant in no way to be judgmental, and the real benefit of the project is the list of
resources that have been listed. Hopefully it will provide a starting point for any of my
peers who wish to expand their knowledge of this area of the history of science.
Survey:
mail to the other members of the course. Participation was purely voluntary, and
participants were given some idea of the purpose of the survey from the outset. I had 23
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Knowledge of Science and Tech. Development in Ancient China
completed surveys returned, out of a total of 44 (~52% response rate). The full survey
can be found as Appendix A, as well as posted separately along side this report.
Results:
! The results of the survey were a mix of expected and surprising results.
! - The first question was purely demographical. Of the 24 who responded to this
question, 7 listed only “hard sciences” as teaching areas (math, physics, chemistry,
biology, physical geography), while the other 17 had a mix of hard sciences and other
teaching areas (e.g. phys. ed / kin, art, social studies / history, drama).
science in ancient China off the cuff. While many wrote about the three pieces of
stated that they knew very little about the subject, there were a few respondents who
listed other pieces of knowledge. This is evidence that there is some knowledge of this
- The third question asked participants to rate their own knowledge in the areas of
science and technology development in Europe, Outside of Europe, and in East Asia.
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Knowledge of Science and Tech. Development in Ancient China
I found it interesting that “know very little” came up as the top response in not only
Outside of Europe and China / East Asia, but in Europe as well. It seems that people
are not very confident of their knowledge of science and technology development in
general. I suppose we are more experts in science knowledge than the history of
science. It is definitely true, however, that people were a lot more likely to rate their
knowledge higher in the European context, confirming that there may very well exist a
! - Question four asked participants to rate how important they feel knowledge of
science and technology development in China is for school science teachers. As can be
seen below, the vast majority of participants responded that they felt it was somewhat
important. This helps support the desire that I detected for a set of resources that could
! - Questions five, six, seven and eight were intended to measure some of the
actual knowledge that participants hold in these areas. They are in no way an accurate
There are only four questions, and they are set up as true and false. The initial written
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Knowledge of Science and Tech. Development in Ancient China
question is probably a better measure of what people actually know. It was interesting to
ask a few questions to see how people did though. Keep in mind that there is no way to
know whether participants have ever come across this information before in their lives,
(excepting the first question, which was covered in the Science Perspectives course
that we are all enrolled in). Below are the responses to each of the four true and false
questions:
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Knowledge of Science and Tech. Development in Ancient China
The correct answers are in this order: True, True, False, and True. (based on China -
! More people got questions 5, 6, and 8 correct than incorrect. More people chose
true than false for question 7, though it was pretty close to half and half. I was surprised
that people were generally this accurate with these questions, especially since a lot of
the information is not very commonly known in our Eurocentric North-American culture. I
also hoped that these questions might pique the interest of some of my peers, as it is
easy to see how two stage rockets and earthquake detectors might be brought into
some of the science topics we will be teaching over the next few years.
! - Questions nine and ten revolved around participantsʼ confidence in their ability
to expand their knowledge in this area, and the strategies and resources that they might
employ in doing so. It was good to see that almost all participants rated their confidence
The written responses to question ten also provided a lot of confidence. Participants
came up with a great number of possible avenues for the development of their own
knowledge in this area, including very popularly the internet, but also books, television,
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Knowledge of Science and Tech. Development in Ancient China
documentaries, and seeking out experts. Another interesting suggestion was to look into
I was very pleased to see these suggestions, though I have found the internet to be a
less valuable resource than books, as can be seen in the list of resources provided here
Conclusion:
history of science beyond the traditional European context. The survey that was
conducted supports the fact that soon-to-be science teachers do not feel that they know
a lot about this topic, but that they do feel it is important information to have as science
teachers. It also suggests that the future teachers of science in this particular class feel
quite confident in their abilities to increase their knowledge in this area, to fill in the gaps
that they perceive. I hope that the resource list that is provided along with this report
might help any of my peers that are interested in looking into them.
NOTE: The China - 7000 Years of Discovery mentioned earlier is a particularly short
and accessible summary of some of the accomplishments that were made in ancient
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Knowledge of Science and Tech. Development in Ancient China
Works Cited:
Center.
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Knowledge of Science and Tech. Development in Ancient China
[written text entry box]
2. Please list briefly what you know of science and technology development in
the past in China. You may list specific developments / inventions, or make
a more general statement. You can also compare China and Europe if you'd
like.
[written text entry box]
Outside of Europe:
In Europe:
Appendix A-1
Knowledge of Science and Tech. Development in Ancient China
[written text entry box]
5. The compass, gunpowder, and paper making were first developed in China.
True
False
6. The Chinese invented the world's first two stage rocket, the "Fire-Dragon".
One rocket propelled the large rocket, and then secondary ones fired many
small fire-arrows from it's mouth.
True
False
True
False
8. Movable type and the printing press had much more impact on Europe due
to the relatively simple alphabet and more demand for printed books.
True
False
Appendix A-2
Knowledge of Science and Tech. Development in Ancient China
9. How confident are you that you could find information to increase your
knowledge in this area? (irrespective of your perceived present knowledge
base)
very confident
somewhat confident
not very confident
not at all confident
10. What ways could you use to learn more about the development of Science
and Technology in China / East Asia?
[written text entry box]
Appendix A-3
Knowledge of Science and Tech. Development in Ancient China
The following books and websites could be useful resources to help learn about the
development of science and technology in ancient China. It seemed to be easier to find books
than web resources, though I’m sure with some searching a lot more could be found online. I
hope these are helpful!
Books:
Source: Notes:
Menzies, G. (2002). 1492: The Year China Discovered This book and the one
America. New York, NY: HarperCollins. below claim to reveal
some pretty interesting
history that may have
been ignored by the
west for a long time.
Menzies, G. (2008). 1434: The Year a Magnificent Iʼm not sure how well
Chinese Fleet Sailed to Italy and Ignited the the evidence sticks
Renaissance. New York, NY: HarperCollins. together for these, as I
havenʼt read either in itʼs
entirety, or done any
outside research.
Appendix B-1
Knowledge of Science and Tech. Development in Ancient China
Web Resources:
Some resources I found with a quick search. I have not dug very deeply into them, but they seem
like they could be very useful starting places.
Title Address
http://www.csupomona.edu/~plin/ls201/confucian5.html
http://newton.uor.edu/Departments&Programs/
AsianStudiesDept/china-science.html
Appendix B-2