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NST2601 ASSIGNMENT MEMOS
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- University Of South Africa (Unisa)
NST2601 ASSIGNMENT MEMORANDUMS
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ASSIGNMENT 1 MEMO NST2601QUESTION 1: [10 MARKS]
a) Indigenous Knowledge
Indigenous knowledge can best be described in terms of the following: people,
place/context, language, knowledge, culture, practices and dynamism.
b) Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS)
Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS) is a broad framework of thinking about our local
context, seeks to problematise the insufficient integration of the cultural-social and the
canonical-academic dimensions of natural science and technology education.
c) Traditional Knowledge
Knowledge systems embedded in cultural traditions of regional, indigenous, or local
communities.
d) Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) and
Refers to the evolving knowledge acquired by indigenous and local peoples over
hundreds or thousands of years through direct contact with the environment.
e) Traditional Environmental Knowledge.
Traditional ecological knowledge is defined as a cumulative body of knowledge,
practice, and belief, evolving by adaptive processes and handed down through
generations by cultural transmission, about the relationship of living beings (including
humans) with one another and with their environment.
QUESTION 2: [10 MARKS]
Why is indigenous knowledge important? Explain using specific examples. (10)
N.B. 5 marks for explaining the importance of indigenous knowledge and 5 marks for
examples.
Our school curricula have, to a large extent, been highly westernised, with little opportunity for
including indigenous knowledges. Indigenous knowledges have been excluded, marginalised,
misrepresented, invalidated and labelled as inferior. Education institutions (such as schools)
in particular have been zones of exclusion of such knowledges. This has created a situation
, where what the learners learn at school is different from their lived experiences at home. It
has also excluded the role of parents and elderly people in the education of their children
about their culture, values and livelihoods.
QUESTION 3: [10 MARKS]
The history of science is full of great works that have marked a turning point in the development
of a branch of knowledge, and in which the proposals for a new theoretical frame of reference
or a new systematization of the known facts. Explain this argument thoroughly with
examples.
The history of science is full of great works that have marked a turning point in the development
of a branch of knowledge, and in which the proposals for a new theoretical frame of reference
or a new systematization of the known facts were preceded by an extensive historical
introduction consisting in the evolution of the topic up to that moment. From the 18th Century
on, with the growing specialization in science that gave rise to new disciplines, and with the
acceleration of the changes in theories and scientific method, the number of works of this kind
has grown considerably. Particularly in the 19th Century, there were many scientists who were
conscious of the profoundly innovative character of their work, and who did not hesitate to
draw self-justifying historical pictures which promoted appreciation of the significance of their
own contributions. Cuvier, Humboldt, Ritter, Lyell, Darwin, Comte, and many others who made
decisive contributions, were not only aware of being genuine creators and the force behind
new scientific developments, they also took active part in contemporary controversies and felt
the need, to a greater or lesser extent, to convince the general public of the innovative
character of their work.
This led them to write, or rewrite, the history of the discipline, to reveal the obstacles that had
been put in the way of the development of that science, whose final manifestation was now
assured - and to point out those forerunners who had prepared the way.
The case of Lyell is particularly significant. In the long historical introduction to his Principles
of Geology (1830) (1), Lyell created the myths which allowed him to set himself in a privileged
position in the Pantheon of Geology. He did this both by claiming to be the true creator of the
basic principles of that science, and also by pointing out the barriers which had hitherto
impeded its development: religion, philosophical speculation, and the anthropomorphic world
view (2). In spite of these obstacles, the way towards a positive and uniformitarian geology
had in fact been discovered gradually, but in talking about this Lyell hands out praise, blame
(and silence) in a way that exaggerates the originality of his own contribution. His introduction
presents the history of geology as an oversimplified dichotomy between biblical catastrophism
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