Classroom lesson · Dômes de Fabedougou · 🇧🇫 Burkina Faso

Dômes de Fabedougou

Giant smooth rock domes rising from the savanna

Photo · Wikimedia Commons

What is it?

The Dômes de Fabedougou are enormous rounded rocks that rise straight out of the flat savanna in south-west Burkina Faso. They look like giant smooth eggs or bubbles made of stone. Rain, wind and sun have been slowly sculpting these granite boulders for millions of years.

Tell me more

Granite is one of the hardest rocks on Earth, and these domes formed deep underground a very long time ago. Over millions of years the softer rock above them wore away, and the hard granite domes were left standing tall. The shapes you see today were rounded by rain washing over them season after season.

The domes sit near the town of Bobo-Dioulasso in a green, hilly area called the Cascades region. Visitors walk along paths between the boulders and can even climb some of the smaller ones. From the top you can see the tops of trees stretching out in every direction like a green carpet.

People who live nearby have told stories about the domes for many generations. Lizards sun themselves on the warm rock surfaces, and you might spot colourful birds darting between the boulders. Early in the morning, mist sometimes wraps around the domes and makes them look like they are floating.

The Dômes de Fabedougou are a protected natural site and sit very close to the Karfiguéla waterfalls, so many visitors explore both in the same day. Together they show how Burkina Faso has landscapes that most people do not expect when they first hear about West Africa.

In the classroom

Walk your class through this in 15 minutes.

Talk together

Discussion prompts

  1. 01How do you think rain and wind can change the shape of a rock over millions of years? Can you think of something at home that slowly changes shape when water wears at it?
  2. 02If you could climb to the top of one of the domes, what do you think you would see?
  3. 03Why might it be important to protect places like the Dômes de Fabedougou?
Try this

Classroom activity

Use modelling clay to create your own 'dome landscape'. Roll smooth ball shapes and press them gently onto a flat base. Then discuss with a partner: if rain fell on your clay domes for a very, very long time, what shape do you think they would become?