Future Teachersʼ Perceptions and Attitudes on Knowledge

of Science and Technology Development in Ancient China

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

wondered whether many of the soon-to-be science teachers in my Science

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

is beyond the scope of this project, however.

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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-

farmers and a few scholar-poets running a government of “imperial oriental despotism”

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

constraints; I am not suggesting we exchange Bio 30 for a History in China course). A

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:

! I used the online survey tool SurveyMonkey (https://www.surveymonkey.com/) to

produce a very short and simple questionnaire to administer to my fellow members of

the Science Perspectives course at the College of Education on the University of

Saskatchewan Campus. The survey was provided through a web-link, dispersed by e-

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).

! - The second question was intended to measure participant knowledge of

science in ancient China off the cuff. While many wrote about the three pieces of

Chinese-originated technology that we had discussed previously in class, or simply

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

area of science within our peer group.

- 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.

The results can be seen here:

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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

relatively low level of knowledge for history of science outside of Europe.

! - 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

help us to expand our knowledge.

! - 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

measure of peopleʼs knowledge of science and technology development in China.

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 -

7000 Years of Discovery)

! 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

as either very confident or somewhat confident:

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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documentaries, and seeking out experts. Another interesting suggestion was to look into

textbooks in areas beyond science, like history, philosophy, and geography.

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

as Appendix B, and published separately along with this report.

Conclusion:

! In closing, I believe that it is important for teachers of science to explore the

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

China; it is potentially a good starting place.

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 Knowledge of Science and Tech. Development in Ancient China

Works Cited:

Needham, J. (1982). Rivers of Science. In China Science and Technology Palace

Preparatory Committee (Eds.), China - 7000 Years of Discovery. Ontario Science

Center.

Snively, G. & Corsiglia, J. (2001). Discovering Indigenous Science: Implications for

Science Education. Science Education, 85(1), 6-36.

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Appendix A: Full Survey

421 Survey: Science and Technology in History of China

Can be found at: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/P6BB3FV

1. What are your teaching areas?

[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]

3. Please rate your perception of your knowledge of science and technology

development in each of these areas:

in China / East Asia:

 
know very little
know a bit
know quite a lot
know very much

Outside of Europe:

know very little

know a bit
know quite a lot
know very much

In Europe:

know very little

know a bit
know quite a lot

Appendix A-1
 Knowledge of Science and Tech. Development in Ancient China

know very much

4. How important do you feel knowledge of science and technology

development in China is for school science teachers?

not at all important; of no use

interesting, but not useful
somewhat important
very important

Explain your answer:

[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

7. A system for detecting earthquakes and pointing towards them was

developed first in Europe and transferred to China through the silk road.

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

Appendix B: List of Resources

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:

China Science and Technology Palace Preparatory A great simple

Committee (Eds.). (1982). China - 7000 introduction. Short and
Years of Discovery. Toronto: Ontario Science includes a lot of
Center. interesting information.

Sung, Ying-Hsing. (1966). Tʼien-Kung Kʼai-Wu - Chinese A translation of an old

Technology in the Seventeenth Century (E-Tu Zen Sun Chinese science
& Shiou-Chuan Sun, Trans.). University Park and “textbook.”
London: Pennsylvania State University Press.

Sivin, N. (1995). Science in Ancient China: Researches Collection of the authors

& Reflections. Brookfield Vermont: Ashgate Publishing. essays.

Elman, B. A. (2005). On Their Own Terms: Science in

China 1550 - 1900. Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Ke Yan. (2004). Science & Technology in China -

Reform and Development (Chen Ru, Trans.). Beijing:
China Intercontinental Press.

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

The Science & Technology http://east_west_dialogue.tripod.com/id1.html

Ancient China Taught the West

http://www.csupomona.edu/~plin/ls201/confucian5.html

http://newton.uor.edu/Departments&Programs/
AsianStudiesDept/china-science.html

Appendix B-2