Which environment weighs most on people? A desert crossing

This lesson asks you to compare physical environments in different places and decide which have the greatest impact on people, saying what criteria you used. The museum offers one desert crossing; your class must bring other environments, such as rainforests, mountains or coasts, to compare. ¹

Decide what counts as a challenge and what counts as an opportunity before you compare. Ask whether the same environment can be both, and for whom.

Ibn Jubayr left Qus on camels with the camel-drivers from al-Mubarraz on the southern side of the town, and then reached Aydhab ². They set out on Monday, the thirteenth of Safar, and at the beginning of the night they halted at a water known as al-Hajir. After it the book mentions the water points, among them al-'Ashira, two stages from Aydhab ². The book states that this road was deadly to pilgrims through thirst ². They arrived on Saturday at a city on the coast of the Jeddah sea, without walls, from which the jalab sail to Jeddah ². How do we know the order of the stops? The record says that the order of these points is not settled, because their mention in the text runs across two routes ².

The book names the water points one after another, and it also says the road was deadly to pilgrims through thirst. If you had to plan this crossing, which would you most want to know about each water point, and why would the unsettled order of the stops matter to you?

• Qus to Aydhab across the desert: the stages, the water points and the warning about thirst.
• Ibn Jubayr: the traveller whose book describes the road.
• Qus: where the camels set out.
• Aydhab: the city on the coast where the crossing ends.

Read Qus to Aydhab across the desert. List the challenges the traveller faced and anything the road offered, then say how you would score this desert against another environment your class chooses.