Ms. Coyle’s 6th grade Social Studies class is currently studying Ancient Egypt. As part of that lesson, the students are learning about the Nile River and the Egyptian’s dependance on the Nile for fresh water and agriculture. The class was tasked with building a model of the Nile that they would then flood to show how the yearly occurrence in Egypt was beneficial to the survival of the Ancient Egyptians.

The models consisted of the river bed, fertile soil planted with papyrus seeds, the desert sands and rocks to represent the mountain ranges. After building their models, the students flooded their rivers so they could see how the annual flooding gives much needed water to crops along the shore and how the desert sands act as a natural break to the flood waters.