Worksheet

Across Egypt in Three Days: Desert, River, Sea

Grade 6 geography: cross Egypt from Kharga Oasis to the Nile and the Red Sea using a map card, latitude, longitude and climate data.

Grade 6Social StudiesInteractive · Printable

Aligned toGEO.6.1

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What’s included

Single worksheet
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1 C3 Framework standard
Printable answer key
11 questions
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Details

Format: Interactive · Printable
Grade: Grade 6
Subject: Social Studies
Question types: Fill in the blank, Multiple choice, Matching, Circle the answer, Sorting, Short answer

About this worksheet

What students practice

Students use latitude and longitude on a described map to locate places and find directions.
Students use climate data to explain why people in a dry belt settled where a river supplied water.
Students explain how the Nile flood let farmers grow crops in a desert country.

How to use

Have students trace the route on scrap paper from the map card before they read the travel log. Discuss the last open response as a class after they write.

Curriculum

C3 Framework standard covered

GEO.6.1

Use maps, latitude and longitude, and climate information to explain why the first civilizations grew in river valleys.

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Across Egypt in Three Days: Desert, River, Sea

Follow a map card and a travel log from a desert oasis to the Nile and the Red Sea.

The map card

The traveler and her log are made up for this worksheet, but the places and facts are real. Read the map card and the table. Then answer the questions.

Map card: a route across southern Egypt
1. Kharga Oasis lies in the Western Desert, at about 25°N, 31°E. The route starts here.
2. Thebes (the modern city of Luxor) lies on the Nile River, at about 26°N, 33°E.
3. The Nile flows north through Egypt and empties into the Mediterranean Sea, far to the north.
4. Wadi Hammamat is a dry valley that runs east from the Nile Valley through rocky hills.
5. Quseir lies on the coast of the Red Sea, at about 26°N, 34°E. The route ends here.
6. The Ethiopian Highlands lie far to the south, off this map, at about 12°N, 37°E.

Places on the Route (modern climate averages, rounded)
Place	Latitude, longitude	Yearly rain	Hottest-month high
Kharga Oasis	25°N, 31°E	under 0.1 in	about 103°F
Thebes (Luxor)	26°N, 33°E	under 0.1 in	about 106°F
Quseir	26°N, 34°E	about 0.2 in	about 91°F
Ethiopian Highlands	12°N, 37°E	about 55 in	about 85°F

The traveler drives from Kharga Oasis to Thebes. Using the map card, in which general direction does she travel?

A. Mostly south
B. Mostly east
C. Mostly north
D. Mostly west

Compared with Thebes, where are the Ethiopian Highlands?

A. At the same latitude, but farther east
B. Farther south and farther west
C. Farther south and farther east
D. Farther north and farther east

Use the latitudes on the map card.

Thebes lies about degrees of latitude farther north than the Ethiopian Highlands.

The travel log

Read the traveler's log. Then use it, the map card and the table to answer the questions.

Three Days Across Egypt: A Geography Teacher's Travel Log

1Day 1, Kharga Oasis. We begin in Egypt's Western Desert. No river flows here. The town's water comes from underground, from springs and deep wells. Date palms and small green fields crowd around the water, and a short walk away the sand and bare rock begin again. Traders' caravans have stopped at this oasis for water for thousands of years.

2Day 1, afternoon. Driving east, we climb onto a high, flat plateau of limestone. For about three hours we pass no fields, no trees and no towns.

3Day 2, Thebes. At the plateau's edge the road drops down a cliff, and the Nile Valley opens below us like a green ribbon laid across brown paper. In many places the strip of farmland is only a few miles wide. Ancient Egyptians called its dark, silty soil Kemet, "the black land," and the desert around it Deshret, "the red land." For thousands of years the Nile rose each summer and spread water and fresh silt over the valley floor. Farmers built low earth walls to hold the floodwater in large basins. When the water drained away in the fall, they sowed wheat and barley in the wet mud. A field could reach only as far as the floodwater did. In the New Kingdom, about 1550 to 1070 BCE, Thebes was one of Egypt's greatest cities and often its capital.

4Day 2, evening. Where did all that water come from? Our guide points south. More than 1,000 miles away, in the Ethiopian Highlands, heavy rains fall from about June to September, and the hills turn green. Swollen streams rush down the slopes into rivers that join the Nile and carry its flood north into Egypt. Today a large dam at Aswan holds back the flood, and canals water the fields around Luxor all year.

5Day 3, Wadi Hammamat and Quseir. We leave the river and drive east through Wadi Hammamat. Ancient Egyptian expeditions came here to cut a hard, dark stone for statues, and travelers carved their names and prayers into the rocks. At the end of the road lies Quseir. A sea breeze keeps it cooler than Thebes, but almost no rain falls and no river reaches it. Egyptians sent ships from harbors on this coast to trade along the Red Sea, but much of the food their crews ate was grown in the Nile Valley and carried across the desert.

6Tonight I looked at my map again. Kharga, Thebes and Quseir lie at almost the same latitude, in one of the driest belts on Earth. Yet only one of them became the heart of a great civilization.

Which chain best explains where the water for Thebes' fields came from in ancient times?

A. Highland summer rain → the Nile rises → basins fill
B. Springs at Kharga → canals east → fields at Thebes
C. Red Sea tides → Wadi Hammamat → Nile basins
D. Rain on the plateau → desert streams → Nile basins

Underline the sentence from paragraph 3 that best explains why the green strip ends so sharply at the desert.

In many places the strip of farmland is only a few miles wide.Farmers built low earth walls to hold the floodwater in large basins.A field could reach only as far as the floodwater did.In the New Kingdom, about 1550 to 1070 BCE, Thebes was one of Egypt's greatest cities and often its capital.

Draw a line from each place on the route to what made it important to people.

Kharga Oasis
Thebes
Wadi Hammamat
Quseir

A. A desert stop where wells gave travelers water
B. A coast where ships set out to trade
C. A great city fed by farms on flooded land
D. A route to the coast and a source of hard stone

Quseir is cooler than Thebes and gets a little more rain. Using the table and paragraph 5, why did it not grow into a farming center like Thebes?

A. It had too little rain and no river to water fields.
B. Its hotter summers dried out the wheat before harvest.
C. It lies far north of Thebes, where summers are short.
D. The Red Sea flooded its fields with salt water each year.

An official at ancient Thebes must send sacks of grain to a ship waiting at Quseir. Based on the map card and the log, which plan makes the most sense?

A. Sail north on the Nile until the river reaches the Red Sea
B. Carry the grain west across the plateau to Kharga Oasis
C. Sail south on the Nile toward the Ethiopian Highlands
D. Carry the grain east through Wadi Hammamat, with water

Sort each thing from the log by where its water came from.

Wheat sown in a basin near ThebesDate palms around KhargaGreen hills in the Ethiopian HighlandsFields around Luxor todayWater for a caravan stopping at KhargaStreams rushing down the highland slopes

The Nile and its flood	Springs and wells	Rain that falls on the spot

Make a claim

Use the map card, the table and the travel log.

10.

In paragraph 6, the traveler notices that Kharga, Thebes and Quseir lie at almost the same latitude. What does this comparison best show?

A. Thebes got more rain than the other two because of its latitude.
B. All three are hot, but only Thebes had river water for fields.
C. Places near the sea get far more rain than places inland.
D. Places at one latitude can feed about the same number of people.

11.

A classmate says, "Thebes became a great city mainly because of its warm latitude." Do you agree, disagree or partly agree? Make a claim, give at least two pieces of evidence from the map card, the table or the travel log, and explain your reasoning.