G u i d e
t o
G e o g r a p h y
C h a l l e n g e
Africa and the Middle East
ASIA
EUROPE
ATLANTIC
OCEAN
ALPS
S
AIN
NT
U
MO
AS
L
AT
A
ZA
GR
OS
SYRIAN
DESERT
NILE RIVER
VALLEY
H
A
R
A
TIBESTI MTS.
ERT
DES
LIBYAN
S
Fertile Crescent
Mediterranean Sea
M
OU
NT
A IN
S
ARABIAN
NUBIAN
DESERT
DESERT
Nile River
ETHIOPIAN
HIGHLANDS
VA
L
LE
Y
AFRICA
ETHIOPIA
IFT
X
X
GRE
AT
R
X
X
KENYA HIGHLANDS
INDIAN
OCEAN
ATLANTIC
OCEAN
N
NA
E
S
0
500
1,000 miles
ERT
DES
MIB
W
KALAHARI
DESERT
INDIAN
OCEAN
0
500
1,000 kilometers
Sinusoidal (Sanson-Flamsteed) Projection
AW_LG_U01_01.eps
Africa and the Middle East
Third
©Proof
Teachers’ Curriculum Institute
TCI18 109
Investigating the Past 1
G u i d e
t o
G e o g r a p h y
C h a l l e n g e
Geography Skills
Score 1 point for each correct answer. Use the map on the previous page to check shading and labeling.
1. Use the annotated map to check students’ label
for Africa. Europe lies to the north of Africa.
Asia lies to the northeast of Africa.
2. Use the annotated map to check students’ label
for the Nile River. The Nile River flows into the
Mediterranean Sea.
cross the Mediterranean Sea, in which case
early humans would have needed the technology and resources to build some sort of
seagoing vessel. It might have been easier for
these people to migrate over land, making their
way around the desert, to the Fertile Crescent.
10.Mesopotamia lies between the Tigris and the
Euphrates rivers in the Fertile Crescent.
3. Use the annotated map to check students’
shading and labeling of the Nile River valley.
11.Without resources such as stone, wood, and
metal, the people of the Fertile Crescent would
have few materials with which to build shelters.
In addition, it would have been difficult to craft
any type of tools.
4. The Fertile Crescent is the curved region in
the Middle East, extending from the Persian
Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea. The Tigris and
the Euphrates rivers run through the Fertile
Crescent. Use the annotated map to check
students’ shading and labeling of the Fertile
Crescent.
12.People need water to survive. They need fresh
water for drinking and irrigating their crops.
Fish and other sources of food live in water,
as well, and waterways provide a method of
transportation. For these reasons, early peoples
naturally settled in those areas that had a reliable water supply.
5. Students should label the Atlantic Ocean, the
Mediterranean Sea, and the Indian Ocean.
Using Scores to Inform Instruction
6. Check students’ placement of an X in the
Great Rift Valley region to mark the location
of the fossil discovery. The annotated map has
four; accept any one or any X in the Great Rift
Valley region.
7. Students should label the Sahara, Arabian
Desert, Syrian Desert, Kalahari Desert, Namib
Desert, Nubian Desert, Libyan Desert.
8. Because the desert is dry, it is inhospitable to
human life. Thus, early people avoided settling
in the desert. Rather, they chose areas near
rivers, which provided fresh water and fish,
allowed them to grow crops, and later became
the means of transport for trading.
Critical Thinking
Questions may have more than one correct
answer. Score 1 to 3 points for each reasonable
answer, depending on the strength of students’
geographic reasoning.
Geography Skills A score of 6 out of 8 or better
indicates that students have acquired sufficient
geographic information to proceed.
Critical Thinking A score of 8 out of 12 or
better indicates that students are beginning to
understand the relationships between physical
geography and the different ways in which people live.
Modifying Instruction
ELL or Learners with Special Education
Needs Consider focusing on map-reading
questions or limiting the number of “Critical
Thinking” questions.
Students with Weak Map or Critical Thinking
Skills Assign appropriate pages from the Social
Studies Skills Toolkit in the back of the Lesson Masters.
9. Students should note that migration to the
north would have required early humans to
© Teachers’ Curriculum Institute
Investigating the Past 2