Alexandria and Luxor: two climates
Egypt is a big country, and its climate is not the same everywhere. Alexandria lies on the Mediterranean Sea in the north. Its summers are warm and the air feels damp, which we call humid. Its winters are cooler and bring most of its rain. Luxor lies far to the south, on the Nile, away from the sea. It has a desert climate: summers are very hot, winter days are warm and the nights are cool, and it hardly ever rains. Seas shape climate too: the Mediterranean Sea in the north and the Red Sea in the east make the coasts milder than the desert far from the sea. Rain is measured in millimetres (mm). A rain gauge collects rain in a tube with a scale. If 5 mm of rain falls in one hour, then in 4 hours 5 × 4 = 20 mm fall. Multiplication helps us find the total. We can also show climate data in a dot plot, with one dot for each month.
| Alexandria | Luxor | |
|---|---|---|
| Summer | warm and humid | very hot and dry |
| Winter | cool, with rain | warm days, cool nights |
| Rain | mostly in winter | hardly ever |
Make a rain gauge with a grown-up. Tape a ruler marked in mm to a clear straight-sided jar and stand it in an open place such as a balcony or garden. On each rainy day read the water level in mm. If there is no rain, a grown-up pours in a little water from a cup so you can practise reading. Then invent two rain stories and solve them with multiplication, for example “It rained 4 mm each hour for 5 hours.” Last, write two sentences to compare Alexandria and Luxor.