NOV20

Classroom lesson · Sahara Desert · 🇹🇳 Tunisia

Sahara Desert

The world's largest hot desert — and a Star Wars filming location!

Photo · Wikimedia Commons

What is it?

The Sahara is the largest hot desert on Earth, stretching across northern Africa. Part of it covers the south of Tunisia, where you will find enormous golden sand dunes, rocky plateaus, and ancient oases full of date palms. The Tunisian Sahara is also famous for being where parts of the original Star Wars films were shot!

Tell me more

The sand dunes of the Tunisian Sahara can reach 30 metres high — about the height of a ten-storey building — and the wind constantly shifts them into new shapes. Travelling over these dunes by camel or 4x4 vehicle is a popular adventure. At night the sky above the desert is astonishing because there are no city lights to block out the stars.

Near the village of Matmata, local Berber people traditionally built their homes underground — carved right into the rock — to stay cool in summer and warm in winter. These remarkable pit-houses are still there today. Filmmakers loved the look of them so much that the village became the planet Tatooine in the original Star Wars films. Visitors can even stay overnight in one of the cave hotels.

The desert is not empty — it is full of life if you know where to look. Fennec foxes, desert hedgehogs, and scorpions hide in the sand. Date palm oases create tiny green islands of shade and water. Camel caravans once crossed the Sahara carrying gold and salt, and today camel trekking is one of the most popular activities for visitors.

In the classroom

Walk your class through this in 15 minutes.

Talk together

Discussion prompts

  1. 01Why do you think people in Matmata chose to build their homes underground instead of above ground?
  2. 02If you were crossing the Sahara 500 years ago with a camel caravan, what three things would you bring and why?
  3. 03The desert seems empty but has lots of hidden life. Can you think of other places that look empty but are actually full of living things?
Try this

Classroom activity

Create a desert scene in a shoebox or on a large piece of card. Use sand (or torn yellow paper), small rocks, and drawings of plants and animals. Label each living thing you include and write one sentence about how it survives in the heat.

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