Teaching Geography Workshop 4: North Africa/Southwest Asia – Part 2: Egypt
JIM BINKO:
Our investigation of North Africa/Southwest Asia continues in Egypt. Here
as throughout that region, the presence or absence of water has had a
profound influence on human settlement.
We will see the great impact that access to resources has on the
characteristics, distribution and migration of human population on
Earth's surface. You will be able to understand how changes in the
spatial distribution of population may result in changes in social
and economic conditions. Conditions may include availability of water
supply for expanding urban regions, adequate space for extra housing,
and opportunities or a lack thereof for education and employment.
Egypt has harnessed the mighty Nile with both positive and negative
consequences. This case study shows how human actions modify the
physical environment. Here we see the contrast between ancient ways
of life and modern technology in a contest for domain over the resources
of Egypt.
This drives our second objective: to understand the role of technology
in changing the physical environment, and the environmental
consequences of such actions. Following the case study, we will
observe seventh-grade teacher Cynthia Ryan use Egypt and the Nile as
the focus of a classroom lesson.
NARRATOR:
From space, the earth can seem an abstract pattern of color and shape.
But as we look closer, environmental processes come into view. Here the
rain of East Central Africa collects into the giant Lake Victoria. Its waters
drain to the north, giving rise to one of the world's great rivers, the Nile.
Descending from the African highlands, the Nile winds through one of the
Earth's most arid landscapes. Coursing through the vast desert of
northern Africa, the waters of the Nile nourish a ribbon of green across
the sun-baked terrain. And 4,000 miles from its source, the Nile puts forth
its greatest gift-- a lush and fertile delta that ushered in one of the world's
oldest civilizations.
Near the neck of the delta is the city of Cairo. Today the streets are alive- 11 million people crowd the city, 68 million crowd the country. And
though the bounty of the Nile is great, today the agriculture it supports is
not sufficient to feed the people of Egypt. And so the pressure to use
more of the Nile's water for desert irrigation mounts.
Nile Valley is one of the most densely populated areas in the world. 95%
of Egypt's people live on and depend on just five percent of the land. But
the Nile River and its narrow ribbon of fertile soil has fed Egypt for most
of its long history.
Every year when the river flooded, it left a rich layer of silt to grow crops
in. Nourished by the wild river, the land here was as fertile as any on
Earth. But nearly 50 years ago, Egypt decided to tame the Nile.
The Aswan High Dam was the greatest public work project since the
pyramids. 24 ancient monuments were moved, but many others
disappeared under the new lake. Lake Nasser, the world's largest manmade lake, holds two years worth of the Nile's water. With the Aswan
Dam, Egypt regulates the flow of the Nile. This has been a boon for
agriculture in the delta.
STEWART:
The dam is very important. Without the dam, you would not have
perennial irrigation in the delta. You would not have three cropping
seasons. But there's a down side-- you are holding back silt, so the
nutrient-rich water which used to come every year during the flood no
longer comes. So this has resulted in increased dependency on
fertilizers, on the additions to chemicals to the land. Not only are these
expensive, but there's an environmental cost as well.
NARRATOR:
One such cost is a kind of pollution called salinization. Salinization
occurs most often in arid climates like we find in Egypt. In the hot, dry air,
surface water evaporates quickly before it can sink down into the soil,
leaving behind whatever mineral content was in the water.
KISHK:
The salinization in this field is extreme and obvious. The problem is
widespread, with damaging levels of salinization affecting as much as
50% of Egypt's farmland.
NARRATOR:
But despite the problems, the sunny climate, Nile waters and rich soils
here remain highly productive. Agriculture is a major component of
Egypt's economy and its largest employer. The independent peasant
farmer has been the backbone of Egyptian agriculture, but today many
feel the winds of change.
STEWART:
In the 1990s, Egypt began a structural adjustment program. They cut
subsidies, they reduced debt. Essentially, they're trying to go from a
socialist system to a capitalist system. In agriculture, this has meant a
land reform policy which favors large, efficient commercial farms. Now,
the felaheen tend to have farm sizes of an acre or less. They're not doing
very well. These plot sizes are non-economic. They're simply not big
enough.
NARRATOR:
Many of the felaheen have tilled these plots for generations. And with the
passing of each generation, the plots tend to be divided among siblings.
You can see the resulting pattern in this satellite view of the Nile Delta.
The tiny farm plots, often less than an acre in size, put the felaheen at a
great disadvantage.
The shift to commercial farming can best be seen at the edge of the
traditional delta farmland. At the edge, we can see larger fields and the
unmistakable imprint of modern commercial farming. The center pivot
irrigation pattern here is characteristic of commercial farms around the
globe. Economies of scale and modern farming methods can yield seven
times more profit for farms like these than the small plots of the felaheen.
This desert land was barren for centuries. Today, with the help of
irrigation, the farmers are growing many crops-- apples, bananas,
lemons, grapes and various vegetables.
STEWART:
Egypt has an enormous climate advantage. When it's wintertime in
Europe, and people still want to eat strawberries and cucumbers, you can
grow them in Egypt and sell them in Europe.
NARRATOR:
In fact, Egypt has been exporting more cash crops recently, partially as a
result of new commercial farms. Egypt's irrigation program has reclaimed
over a million acres of desert land in recent decades. But nearly as
quickly as they are gaining new farmland in the desert, they are losing
their best farmland to urban growth. We can see it here in Cairo, in the
shadow of the ancient pyramids.
This is a satellite photo of the base of the Nile Delta. The dark green area
is farmland. In 1965, 5½ million people lived in the city of Cairo, a dense
urban area covering about 200 square kilometers. But by 1998, Cairo's
population had nearly doubled, and the resulting urban expansion, seen
here in red, paved over some of Egypt's most productive cropland. The
unfortunate combination of expanding population and shrinking farmland
adds up to a worrisome man-to-land ratio.
KISHK:
In 1800, the man/land ratio was one to one-- one acre per person. In
1900, it was half-acre. Now it is less than one-eighth of an acre, less than
500 square meters per person, and this is not enough to feed the
population.
NARRATOR:
For Egypt, with its growing population, the hope is always the same-- find
a way to use the desert. In 1997, they began an ambitious set of megaprojects. Their goal is to literally move out of the old valley of the Nile,
and into the new "delta." That's their term for huge tracts of desert land-20% of Egypt's total area slated for irrigation and development. At the
heart of the plan is the Toshka Canal.
STEWART:
It's been a... a dream in Egypt, almost a fantasy, perhaps, to try to create
a parallel artificial Nile, and that's what Toshka is designed to do. It's in
the early excavation stages. It's expected to take 20 years to develop this
project. At the end of it, there'll be two new cities, six investment zones.
In addition, a further 500,000 acres will be irrigated, largely to develop
commercial farms on. Now, the water for this-- some of it can possibly
come from groundwater, but only a very small portion. The bulk of it,
about five billion gallons, is going to be diverted from Lake Nasser, and I
think there's a real question as to whether or not there's enough water for
all of this.
NARRATOR:
As Egypt's dependence on the waters of the Nile rises, so does the
likelihood of international friction over the use of this increasingly valuable
resource. There is a long-standing agreement in effect. In 1959, Egypt
and its neighbor to the south, Sudan, agreed to a split of the annual flow
of the Nile water.
The problem lies upstream at the water's source. Here eight other nations
have land within the Nile watershed. These developing economies have a
growing thirst for the waters that would otherwise flow into the Nile. In
1999, the ten countries of the Nile formed the Nile Basin Initiative. Their
purpose is to coordinate water use projects. It's a hopeful sign, but the
coming years will surely see some disputes rise to the surface.
Fortunately, the people of Egypt have a long history of respect for the
Nile's gifts. And today, many Egyptians understand the limits of
increasingly scarce water resources.
KISHK:
There is no prospects to develop more water resources for the Nile. The
groundwater is limited. These limited resources should be used more
wisely in a sustainable basis that will save the resources for the future
generations.
GIL LATZ:
The region of North Africa and Southwest Asia has a unique physical and
cultural geography. Scarcity of water and an arid climate make it one of
the world's driest regions. And this is the only place on Earth where three
continents-- Africa, Europe and Asia-- intersect. The resulting cultural
hearths have shaped civilizations across the world.
People interacting with the environment in these fertile valleys have
devised extremely careful and ingenious land and water management
practices, such as flood plain irrigation. These technologies distinguish
Egypt and Mesopotamia among the great ancient civilizations.
Today, water continues to be critical to economic development and
political stability. Egypt's relations with its upstream neighbors are sure to
be strained as demands on the Nile increase in the coming decades. In
Turkey, a major watershed development project in the southeastern
Anatolia plateau, the headwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, is
certain to alter Turkey's relations with its downstream neighbors, Syria
and Iraq.
Fresh water is today in extremely short supply in the Middle East region.
The hope for peace between Israel and the Palestinians depends, among
other things, on the resolution of competing claims for scarce water
resources. To say that North Africa and Southwest Asia is one of the
driest regions on Earth is not to say it is without water. It is rather to say
that water has always played an extremely important role in the
distribution of population and the evolution of culture. In the years to
come, dividing water resources among the regional powers here is sure
to be a perilous process.
SUSAN HARDWICK: A human geographer looks at water use of rivers like the Nile as an
example of human-environment interaction. It's no accident that the
world's great rivers are often a focal point for human settlement. They
provide us with many essential things like transportation, fresh water,
food and power.
Nearly every major city in Europe is located on or near a large river. Near
the Indian city of Dikhatpura, farmers depend on irrigation networks that
transport the water 200 miles from the Yamuna River to produce food in
a place with unreliable rainfall.
The other side of human-environment interaction is the impact human
processes can have on the natural environment. 350 million people now
live in the drainage area of the Yangtze River near Shanghai. This has
led to serious pollution problems of both water and soils. In the ancient
Chinese city of Guangzhou, where the Yellow River encouraged
settlement long ago, today's farmers must deal with severe erosion of
agricultural land caused by centuries of farming on unstable soils.
Dams on the Columbia River in Oregon and Washington have impacted
salmon populations and seriously affected other natural systems. A
geographical approach to these problems takes into careful account the
essential benefits that a resource like a river can provide. It also weighs
the real costs of failing to understand the complexity of humanenvironment interaction.
BINKO:
Egypt serves as a compelling venue for the study of human systems,
their characteristics and patterns and processes. In the following lesson,
seventh-grade teacher Cynthia Ryan uses Egypt as the focus of such a
study. Cynthia uses hands-on activity in combination with student roleplaying to help her students understand the gravity of present-day
competition for resources in the nation of Egypt.
Our learning objective here is: Explain how hands-on and role-playing
activities foster deeper student understanding of the physical
environment. And secondly, the consequences of human
modification of the environment. As you watch, notice also Cynthia's
use of the geography standards as a framework for what she chooses to
teach about Egypt. Be attentive to the strategies she uses to develop
student background on the content of Egypt and the activities she uses to
enrich the students' concept of place.
NARRATOR:
In Barrington, Rhode Island, Cynthia Ryan's seventh-grade world
geography class is studying Egypt and the Nile River Valley.
CYNTHIA RYAN:
How many people feel pretty comfortable with knowing about the Nile as
a very old, old, old, old place-- the valley, the civilizations, okay? How
many people know about the mummy? Who saw the movie? (\chuckles\)
Okay. How many people realize that our museum in Providence-- our
RISD museum-- has a mummy? How many people have seen the
mummy?
I take their interest in ancient Egypt and mummies and all of that and try
to build on that for the Nile River Valley, and show them how that region
has played a part in the present. So I try to build on what I hope is
already an interest that the kids have.
But I'd like to show you this gentleman. His name was Herodotus and he
was a Greek scholar. And he is given credit for this quote: "Egypt is the
gift of the Nile." What's your reaction to that? What are gifts, and how
could Egypt be the gift of the Nile?
STUDENTS:
Egypt was sort of formed by the Nile because they settled around the
Nile. The Nile is, like, what keeps Egypt alive and keeps them living,
because that's their main source.
RYAN:
Okay. If you got a gift that you really loved, what would you do with that
gift? Try to take good care of them.
BOY:
Keep them in good condition.
GIRL:
They, like, use it all the time.
RYAN:
Okay, because that's exactly what Herodotus meant-- that if it were not
for the Nile and the Nile flowing through to the length it does, this region
of North Africa, they wouldn't really have much going for them because
it's pretty arid and dry and desert. We live on Narragansett Bay, correct?
Okay, so that's a body of water. Have we, with the population around
Narragansett Bay including Providence, had an effect on Narragansett
Bay?
GIRL:
Well, I would say that with the more people, the more technology grows
and that the more water people will need, and with that, more pollutants
get into the water. So I think that we definitely affect the bay.
RYAN:
So the Nile gives Egypt its life, and if the Nile has some of the same
things going on that you've described when people start to live along it,
then what is the Nile's future?
Look at it as a physical space, and if that population is growing, growing,
growing, growing, are you concerned about the Nile River Valley just as
we are concerned about our Narragansett Bay? So, parallels-- doesn't
matter which region of the world you live in. I'm going to ask you to look
inside there and see what your gift is. And I'm going to ask you to look in
here, if you would, please. And Josh, tell me what your gift is.
JOSH:
All butter pound cake.
RYAN:
What's your gift?
BOY:
All butter pound cake.
RYAN:
All right. Your mission will be to turn this Sara Lee pound cake into the
Nile River Valley. I would like you to focus on where is the delta, where
would be the desert space and what is the flow, what is the path that the
Nile tends to take, as best you can.
Could I have two, four, six, eight and how about ten to the back, and two,
four, six, eight-- we must be missing a couple people-- up here. Becky,
want to come join up here?
There are fact cards there about the historical sites, the cities, the
countries. You might want to get your facts together.
STUDENT:
We should color all green first, and then go over it with blue.
STUDENT:
You guys, but look at the stuff we have to do.
NARRATOR:
As students create their maps, Cynthia assigns roles for a later activity.
They will decide if something is positive or negative for Egypt, depending
on their professions' point of view.
BOY:
Pink is, like, it's population.
BOY:
Alexander...
GIRL:
Yeah, you guys, do we have a map on natural resources? Like, what is
physical or something? Yummy! (\students laughing\)
BOY:
Can we eat this after?
RYAN:
Every good map has a what?
STUDENTS:
A key. A compass rose. Compass rose.
RYAN:
Oh, wait, we're not ready. We need more green and yellow. Every map
has a key. Somebody needs to do a key. Every good map has a...
STUDENTS:
Title.
RYAN:
Every good map has a...
STUDENTS:
Scale.
BOY:
How long is the river?
GIRL:
How long did we make it? Seven inches.
RYAN:
They're beginning geographers, so we're just learning our map skills. So
one standard that was addressed would be how to use maps and
geographic representations and tools.
GIRL:
Where's the mouth of the river?
STUDENTS:
Right there.
RYAN:
Folks, could you bring up your cake here, please?
BOY:
We have the orange, and it represents the desert. And then the pink
along the river, it represents the population and overpopulation along the
river.
RYAN:
Are you pretty comfortable with the scale?
GIRL:
Yes.
RYAN:
How did you figure it out?
GIRL:
Um, well, I measured the scale on the, um... the... a map. And then I
measured the Nile River, like the main part of it. Um, after that, I
measured how long that, uh, cake itself is. And then I just matched up the
scales and, like, converted the stuff.
RYAN:
Nice job!
NARRATOR:
For their role-playing activity, students group according to their assigned
profession.
RYAN:
Look at those words. Tell me if you would put that word, that idea in a
positive or a negative light in today's Nile River Valley.
STUDENT:
I'm putting "water" in "positive" because without water, we can't fish. And
pollution is bad because it kills the fish. Putting that there because too
many fishermen could kill... could wipe out the fish in an area.
RYAN:
What's your occupation?
STUDENT:
Fishing.
RYAN:
Okay.
STUDENT:
Um, we put "flooding" for "positive" because it gives us more areas to
fish.
RYAN:
Alex, what's a reservoir?
ALEX:
It's, like, um, a place where, like, water is stored.
RYAN:
Always supposed to be there for you, reserves.
ALEX:
Yeah, and so fish could be there, too, and you could do a little fishing in
the reservoir.
RYAN:
Would you have a problem if we built a dam on the Nile and made an
artificial lake behind the dam where we'd block the water in a reservoir
pooled there? Would that be a problem for you, or you'd like that?
ALEX:
Um... I don't know. It'd be the same, I guess, because it's still water and
there's still fish there.
RYAN:
Okay, thanks, thanks. How about the government official? Brian, you're in
charge of what? Government officials do what? They what?
BOY:
Officials could control the company... I mean, the country. We put this in
"positive" because tourists come, and everything, and that gives us
money from the tourism.
(\students giggle\) (\quietly\):
RYAN:
What would be negative?
BOTH:
Population settlement is good because you want more people coming.
Water is good because we need it. Flooding is not good, because it,
like... (\whispering\):For fishing. People would buy the fish. Fishing is
good because people will buy the fish. Fertilizer is good.
BOTH:
No, good... because the crops grow. We put "good," but too much would
be bad. Can we put, like, in the middle, like side-effects and effects?
RYAN:
Kind of has... yeah.
BOTH:
'Cause fertilizer is good, but too much of it is bad. Fertilizer is good
because it helps the crops... from erosion. For the soil, definitely good. It
will make people come and they'll plant.
RYAN:
Do you think the dam building is a good idea or a bad idea?
BOTH:
Um, could we put it in the middle? Why? Well, like, it's good because it
means more water, but I guess it might also, like, wipe out some of the
archeological sites, too, or something. And so... but we want them, but
we also want the water, so could we put it in the middle? We'd have less
tourism.
RYAN:
Archaeologists, you must have a point of view. Tom, your mission will be
to what?
TOM:
Uh, find fossils and, uh, discover about the history of the country.
GIRL:
Couldn't erosion be, like, in the middle? Because it could ruin the sites,
but it also could, like, make sites.
GIRL:
It could also, like, make us find new stuff. "Population settlement" would
probably be negative because, um, I've read lots of reports about people
stealing artifacts.
RYAN:
It is difficult. I think each group, each occupation is finding it difficult to
say absolutely yes or no about everything. We all kind of come with our
perspective, our point of view, and Egypt, like every other region we
study, is going to have to think about this. But I think what we've come
away with is some of the standards of geographic ideas that I wanted to
present... is mapping. Where is the Nile, what's it about? Your cakes look
wonderful; we'll finish them up at 12:30. And some of the thinking
processes of people living in a region, using that and the impact of
human population-- whether it's ancient civilizations, present and future-and their use of and interaction with that geographic space.
Looking at the physical spaces, and here we have a pretty good
representation of the physical space. This group chose to look at it not
just as a physical space, but people and settlement.
And you did a great job, thanks. And you guys have a good next period,
and I will see you after lunch; we'll finish up.
BINKO:
There are two unifying themes we have seen throughout this program.
First, the use of inquiry-based instruction to develop student
understanding of geography-- not just facts, but concepts and principles.
And second, the use of geography elements and standards as the
framework for shaping classroom lessons.
Cynthia Ryan incorporates both in her classroom practice. We can see
her success as her students actively explore how competing points of
view influence the allocation of Egypt's scarce water resources.