He asks them how it's used and why it's shaped the way it is. The Chinese quick-heating cooking implement explains far more about China than does the diet of its citizens.
Deforestation is a problem in China.
With 1.2 billion people, wood resources are strained. The wok, which was first used by northern tribal groups in the Gobi Desert, is an example of an efficient use of scarce resources. At a workshop seminar, he was exposed to object-based learning, a teaching method for using common objects to get students to think about larger cultural concepts. Since attending the seminar, Mowatt also has used Chinese clothing to get his students talking about different regional climates in China and how those climates produced unique cultural groups. That's just the effect Roberta Gumport hopes the workshop will have on teachers and, alternately, on their students.