Introduction

For Social Studies at the moment the whole 6th grade class have been working on a project, which was all to do with Egypt; not Egypt now but Ancient Egypt. There is so much that you can learn just by researching and doing projects like this. Egypt has a lot of history to it and is very exciting once you have found out all the information on it. The Egyptian project is just one of the projects that we do in 6th grade and that are very much fun.

I have to admit that they are very stressful. On this project I worked with Erez. I found that overall it was a very good project and I enjoyed working with him, through sometimes our differences could get in the way. I think if I had a choice for doing a project like this I think that I would do something which I like more, such as the Aphrodite Project "Geotopia" (which was when you made your own country)

The River Nile

The River Nile is split into two rivers. One is the Blue Nile which starts in Ethiopia in Lake Tana and the second river is the White Nile which starts in Africa in the central lakes. They come from these places and finally they join and flow north to Sudan, Uganda, Egypt and to the Mediterranean Sea for a distance of 4000 miles

On the banks of the Nile is where a lot of animals breed and feed. Millions of species of birds make their homes on the banks of the Nile. It is also home to the papyrus plant which is a different form of paper. The Egyptians used it long ago to make lovely paintings on it and decorate it. (Here is some information on how they prepared the papyrus and some Egyptian papyrus paintings.)

The River Nile is the longest in the world and busiest. Millions of boats a day go through the River Nile. Long ago back in Ancient Egypt people used the River Nile for all sorts of different things . It was very important to the people of Egypt since it is used for transportation of all the goods that are brought into Egypt and out of Egypt. Also the River Nile would bring the big heavy stones to build the pyramids etc and the ancient Egyptians could bring the stones down by river.

The River Nile was also good for if saw someone wanted to attack Egypt then they would have to go through all the deserts of Egypt or they would have to go by boats to attack, so it was a gift the Nile to the Egyptians.

It was also used for when people needed to hunt and catch fish. The River Nile was also used to irrigate crops. The river Nile would flood quite a bit, which would be good for the people of Egypt to make sure that their crops would get water so that they could grow. The Nile was very fast changing though. In such case if the River Nile would flood it would be good but, if it would flood too much it would drown the crops and bring danger to the people of Egypt. Long ago the Egyptians didn't have the high tech things they have today such such as all the measuring things to measure the height of the water. Instead hey built steps to measure the height of the river Nile. if the water would overflow and go up the steps and if it passed a certain place then a warning would be set and they would take the water out. If it stayed up to the point it was suppose to then it would be okay. Then the River Nile was constantly watched for signs of flood.

Today there has been a solution for that which is the Aswan Dam. It controls the River Nile to make sure that not too much water comes in and goes out. Another way to get the water out of the Nile was to build an old machine which would be a kind of see saw and the little spoon would dip into the water and the water would be taken out and then thrown into the little river that where built around the crops so that they would get water.

Last but not least the River Nile would be used for pure pleasure. Even the Ancient Egyptians would sail up and down it for pure pleasure whenever they would get the chance. Without the river Nile there wouldn't be any Egypt because there wouldn't be any food for the people to eat and they would never be able to build their homes.