In my World Civilization course, I have a unit on the Scientific Revolution which covers from the 1500s through 1700s which focuses mainly on astronomy and medicine, so it would not be hard to create a similar unit for science during the Middle Ages which would include astronomy, medicine and mathematics. The study of science and mathematics in history/humanities courses is appropriate because the basis for studying those subjects is curiosity, wonder and inquiry about the natural world; whereas, history/humanities applies these concepts to the world of people. Ideas, whether they are scientific, theological, philosophical, literary, etc., are spread by the movement of people engaged in commerce, trade, conquest, travel, forced and voluntary migrations. Indian numbers developed to provide more precise measurements in astronomy and also commerce were transferred further west by Muslims. Al Khwarizmi is usually given credit popularizing these numbers which entered Spain in western Europe via northern Africa. A source noted that the first western European manuscript to use "Arabic" numbers dates to 976 AD (CE), and that the Italian mathematician, Fibonacci, published a work in 1202 AD (CE) about their use. Gradually "Arabic" numbers achieved greater currency in western Europe because of their use in commercial accounting, record keeping and measuring.  I would develop an exercise in class involving the use of Roman numerals and "Arabic" numerals to do some basic addition, subtraction, division, and multiplication to demonstrate the greater ease in using "Arabic" numerals.