Choose one or more of the projects below to make your own connections to Chinese healing arts. Each project can be completed by an individual student or by a small group.



Chinese medicine involves the use of more than 5,000 herbs to treat a wide variety of injuries and diseases. Locate information about five or more of these herbs, including photographs or drawings of the plants from which they are derived. Create a multimedia presentation about Chinese medicinal herbs—how they are prepared, and the history of their discovery and use in Chinese medicine.

• Include in your presentation some of the herbs discussed in the article "Chinese Herbal Medicine."
• You might want to include brief biographies of some of the key figures in the development of Chinese herbal medicine.
• List unusual medicinal herb treatments, such as the burning of medicinal herbs known as moxibustion.

Write a script for a documentary film on acupuncture and its origins in China. Use the information in the "Acupuncture" article as the basis for your research. Use the Web sites listed on the "Links" page to conduct additional research. The film script should address the following:

• How widely practiced are the healing arts in China today? Are they considered an alternative to, or a major component of, modern Chinese medical care?
• How successful are the healing arts in China at treating various illnesses?
• What are the origins of the Chinese healing arts, and how have they evolved over the centuries?

Your script should include narration and descriptions of locations, sound, re-creations, and visuals.

Use the Web sites listed on the "Links" page to learn about the field of traditional Chinese medicine in the United States. Then write a short essay describing the debates surrounding the practice of traditional Chinese medicine in the U.S. Be sure to answer the following questions in your essay:

• How widely practiced is traditional Chinese medicine in the United States?
• What are the major issues in the debates about traditional Chinese medicine?
• How have practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine responded to skeptics in the Western medical profession?

Use the five articles on Chinese healing arts to identify major differences between traditional Chinese and Western medicine. Chose three diseases or physical conditions and use the Internet, books, and articles to find out how Chinese medicine and traditional Western medicine treat each one. Give an oral presentation of what you learned. You might want to discuss some of the following in your presentation:

• What are the guiding principles of traditional Chinese and Western medicine?
• What are the success rates of traditional Chinese and Western medical approaches to treating the three diseases or conditions you researched?
• What similarities are there between the traditional approaches of Chinese and Western medicine?