Experience #5

 Summary - Visit a cave.


rooms off of "open" room
Entry tunnel
Exterior of a cave home in Matmata, Tunisia




Matmata is located in the center of Tunisia, south of Gabes.
Other caves I saw were near Remada in the south.

  1.  What is the name of the cave?  The cave is one of 800 troglodyte homes in the “suburbs” of a town named Matmata in southern Tunisia.
  2. List the information presented by the guide.
    1. These cave homes are dug into the clay soil and painted white with lime.
    2. A tunnel leads to a room that is open to the air above.
    3. The “open” room contains the entrances to six or more caves where the families live.
    4. 3-7 families share one cave unit.  
    5. The single entrance and the joining of families makes the home easier to protect from invaders.
    6. Located within 30 miles of the Sahara Desert, these homes stay a comfortable temperature and use available resources close to their crops. 
    7. The homes are surrounded by a mountainous desert region with 10-12 days of rain each year.
    8. Family members gather water from local shared cisterns located underground and marked by white domed roofs rising above the soil.
    9. The troglodyte homes of Matmata represent one type of cave home found in Tunisia. There are other types further south.  
  3. How could you use information from a cave to help you in your classroom.
    1. It could fit into a discussion of the use of natural resources.
    2. We could use this in a discussion of human settlements as related to available resources.
    3. It could be included in a discussion of deserts.
    4. It could serve as a cross-curricular link to history or Bible class.
  4. Write a lesson plan describing how you would present this to your class.
***
Title: Surviving the Biomes!
Description: Small groups discuss how to use natural resources to live in each of the biomes.  Can humans adapt to all of earth’s climates?  Evidence tells us that we can.  Each group will be assigned a biome and is expected to create a poster about living in that biome using the resources found there.  Concluding with a slideshow of the berber people who live in caves near the Sahara Desert.
Materials: clip from Survivor Man TV show showing him failing to survive in the desert.
images showing the 5 different biomes
Poster board for each group
markers 
Questions:  The following questions should be answered on your poster.
  1. Where is your biome located on a globe?
  2. What is the range of temperatures in your biome?
  3. Is the length of daylight affected by the time of the year?
  4. How is water obtained?
  5. What foods are available?
  6. What are homes made of?
  7. What are the advantages/ disadvantages of living there? 
  8. Has any of this information been affected by modern society?  In what ways?  Are these changes harmful to the original environment?
Conclusion: After discussing the success of the berber people in the desert, make a connection to history and Bible by discussing well-known events that occurred in different biomes.  Can we think of one for each?




***


5.  What is the cost of seeing the cave?  I paid 75 dollars for a day trip.
6.  What was the length of the tour?  The tour took all day but also included the 8 hour bus ride and a Saharan camel tour.  We spent about an hour in the caves.
7.  What kinds of land features surround the cave?  Mountainous desert and dry riverbeds that fill on the days that it rains.
8.  What is the elevation of the cave?  Approx. 900 ft above sea level.
9.  Write the state and or national standards you feel this experience fulfilled:

  • Human populations use resources in the environment in order to maintain and improve their existence. Natural resources have been and will continue to be used to maintain human populations.
  • Think critically and logically to make the relationships between evidence and explanations
  • The number of organisms an ecosystem can support depends on the resources available and abiotic factors, such as quantity of light and water, range of temperatures, and soil composition. Given adequate biotic and abiotic resources and no disease or predators, populations (including humans) increase at rapid rates. Lack of resources and other factors, such as predation and climate, limit the growth of populations in specific niches in the ecosystem.
  • Soil consists of weathered rocks and decomposed organic material from dead plants, animals, and bacteria. Soils are often found in the layers, with each having a different chemical composition and texture.



The following pictures show other caves that I visited while in Tunisia.  I even slept in one of them!  There were no guides in these caves so I have very little information...


Cave I passed on the road from the Libyan border.


Interior of roadside cave (with niece).


Matmatan hotel used in the filming of Star Wars.


I spent the night in a rebuilt cave 1,500 yrs. old.
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