Africa: Physical Features

Essential Question

How does Africa’s geography, climate, and natural resources affect the way people live and work?

Standard

SS7G1 The student will locate selected features of Africa.

a. Locate on a world and regional political-physical map: the Sahara, Sahel, savanna, tropical rain forest, Congo River, Niger River, Nile River, Lake Tanganyika, Lake Victoria, Atlas Mountains, and Kalahari Desert.

8/12/09 Warm Up

Students will need to write the definition of Sahel, Sahara, Savannah and Tropical Rainforest

Warm up Thursday

WARM UP: Answer the following questions:

1. What is Africa’s Largest Lake?

2. What is unique about the Nile River?

3. What is the largest desert in Africa?

4. What is unique about the tropical rain forest?

What do you notice about this map?

The Sahara Desert

SaharaThe world’s largest hot desert

- “Sahara” is Arabic word for desert.

- The Sahara can experience temperature differences of up to 100 degrees

- Much of the Sahara is not sand. There also are vast areas of gravel, rocky plateaus, and volcanic mountains.

Kalahari Desert

Kalahari Desert

What differences do you notice in all of these

deserts?

The Sahel Desert

The Sahel is in these countries.

Senegal Mauritania Mali Niger Burkina Faso Nigeria Chad Eritrea Sudan The Sahel is semiarid area just south of the Sahara. The Sahel

suffers from desertification, and great famines have resulted. Desertification means the rapid depletion of plant life and the loss of

topsoil at desert boundaries and in semiarid regions, usually caused by a combination of drought and the overexploitation of grasses and other vegetation by people

Taken from the Classroom Atlas

African Savannas It covers 40 % of

Africa!

It covers Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Cote D‘ Ivore, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Nigeria, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Angola, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Botswana, and South Africa.

The Savanna Ecosystem

A savanna is a rolling grassland scattered with shrubs and isolated trees, which can be found between a tropical rainforest and desert biome.

Not enough rain falls on a savanna to support forests.

Savannas are also known as tropical grasslands. They are found in a wide band on either side of the equator on the edges of tropical rainforests.

What kind of wildlife lives in the savanna?

Tropical Rain Forest

From 40 to 75% of all species on Earth are indigenous to the rainforests. It has been estimated that many millions of species of plants, insects, and microorganisms are still undiscovered. Tropical rainforests have been called the "jewels of the Earth", and the "world's largest pharmacy", because of the large number of natural medicines discovered there.

Lake TanganyikaLake Victoria

Congo River Niger River Nile River

Lake Victoria Largest lake in Africa

Second widest fresh water lake in the world

Lake Tanganyika

World Longest Lake.

Second Largest Freshwater Lake in the world

Second Deepest Lake in the world.

Nile River

Runs North instead of South.

Longest river in the world.

Congo River

Second Largest River in Africa

The Congo gets its name from the ancient Kingdom of Kongo which lived at the mouth of the river.

Congo River

Niger River

Third Largest river in Africa

Why do you think

Bodies of water are

Important to Africa?

ATLAS MOUNTIANS

Atlas Mountains

Old Warm Up

WARM UP: Students will cut out shapes of various countries and place them on the Africa map to compare sizes. Handouts will be provided to students. Handouts are found on page 23 in the Africa in Transition book.