My Scientific Revolution project for HIS 295 with Charles Evans is coming to an end. I've got a couple of weeks (week and a half really) to work on it. So I'm not going to spend a lot of time here explaining what I hope it looks like at the end, but I did want to record a little bit of the process. Everything in italics is part of the wish list for the project, given time.
Introduction:
- what is the scientific revolution
- how does it fit with western civilization
- part of what project, HIS 295
- bibliography
The Timeline:
- links with mini-bios, videos, and wikipedia
- tried to create as big a space a possible to view it
- link to the time slider web site and my timeline in particular
Mini-Bios:
- three hundred to five hundred words on the importance of this person on changing ideology of the Sci Rev, Western Civilization, and modern philosophy
- links to articles, websites, videos, and podcasts
- an image
- hope to include some primary source link
News and Iterations
- includes format and ideas about the project
- includes new links and up dates about HOS
- book reviews and recommendations
Assignment
- three optional assignments for this unit
- digital (word cloud? timeline of the individual?);
- research (3 page mini-research on importance of one individual);
- exam (they write a 30 question multiple choice test)
My project is going to be part of a larger on going project to create a syllabus and online course work for a class: The History of Science and Technology. Not only do I think that I will be able to apply for grants to continue this work, but also that I might be able to tap into some of the STEM- (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) specific grants. I am going to continue to work on My So-Called Scientific Revolution, but I needed to situate where this information would come in the larger context of the class--knowing that I can go back and change ideas and resources as needed.
I've pulled out or purchased a couple of new textbooks, that I will be reading through to help design this course. I used these texts to help produce a *very* general outline.
Dr. Robert A. Hatch
Scientific Revolution Homepage
David C. Lindberg
The Beginnings of Western Science: The European Scientific radiation in Philosophical, Religious, and Institutional Context, 600 B.C. to A.D. 1450 (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1992)
There's also a newer edition, which I don't have (yet).
James E. McClellan and Harold Dorn
Science and Technology in World History: An Introduction (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006)
Steven Shapin
The Scientific Revolution (Chicago and London: THe University of Chicago Press, 1996)
I also will be referring to other books in my reference library as noted, in my post Books from the Attic.
I will continue here with the iterations as I work on them. But this felt like a big step in the right direction.
* * *
HIS 295 - Topics: History of Science and Technology
Unit One: "Apes to Alexander"
Week 1 - What is Science? What is Technology?
Week 2 - Early Man to Egypt
Week 3 - My Big Fat Greek Cosmos
Week 4 - It's All Greek to Me
Week 5 - Rome: Veni, Vidi, Vici
Unit Two: Science in the Middle (Age) and Outside (Europe)
Week 6 - Islamic Science
Week 7 - China, India, America
Week 8 - Light in the Dark
Unit Three: My So-Called Scientific Revolution
Week 9 - Copernicus
Week 10 - Kepler and Galileo - The First Copernicans
Week 11 - Descartes and Bacon
Week 12 - "And God said, 'Let Newton be!'"
Unit Four: (We are) Living, In an Industrial World
Week 13 - Machine, Humans, and Animals
Week 14 - Einstein, the Bomb, and Beyond
Week 15 - Review
Week 16 - Exam // Essay
I wanted to create a History of Science learning module online, so that my Western Civ I and II students can use the primary and secondary resources there in a unit project.
The idea was to create a timeline with important people, their works, and events between approximately Copernicus to Newton (maybe earlier to later--depends). Each person would be linked to a mini-biography and each important text would be linked to images of that primary source, a page or two of the text--probably from EEBO (Early English Books Online--a database of all the books printed in English up to 1650? 1700?. Authors and natural philosophers living outside of England were often translated by the leading English philosophers--giving good primary sources in English, even for non-English texts.
I'd also like to include, a very brief historiography of the HoS--also with images of those sources.
The goal is to radically condense the work that a historian does, from survey knowledge from the textbook, to reading and analyzing primary sources AS THEY ORIGINALLY LOOKED, to the study of the historiography of the subject. Many students don't have an understanding of the true nature of historical research, going into high level graduate classes. It certainly is a difficult feat to accomplish in an introductory survey course.
While the NOVA libraries don't have access to EEBO, I found that the Mason library does. I will have to go to the library and be entered into their system. I will then inquire if I will have an online, off-campus, portal access to the Mason resources. My suspicion is probably not--as the login is a Mason email.
So. That was the idea. It's pretty ambitious, but I'm also thinking that I would really like to combine it (or just change it) to a History of Science and Technology course syllabus with individual units laid out, textbooks, and assignments. I really like that the way that Professor Evans has the Digital History Syllabus online, and linked to each week's units. If I choose to do this option, I will also try to include interesting articles, podcasts, and videos in each week's unit (I really should do this idea with Western Civ I and II, as I actually teach those courses).
I don't know if a history of science and technology history course counts as a STEM course--but it may be worth it to wait, apply for grants, and make HoS websites later. I'm interested in hearing what my classmates and Prof. Evans thinks. In the mean time, I've got a LOT that I can work on and continue to investigate.
