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Arctic
Ice and snow cover the Arctic for most of the year. Winter temperatures drop as low as -90° Fahrenheit (-68° Celsius). On land there are no trees. Only bushes, mosses, and flowers grow in the thin soil. Strangest of all, in the Arctic the Sun doesn’t rise for part of the year!
ARCTIC CIRCLE
Mapmakers like to draw an imaginary line around the top of the globe of Earth. That line is the Arctic Circle. The large region inside the line consists of the Arctic Ocean, many islands, and parts of Asia, Europe, and North America. Outside the circle, the Sun rises and sets every day. That’s not always the case inside the circle.
Atlantic Ocean
If you look at a map of the world, you’ll see a body of water that runs the length of Earth in a huge, S-shaped curve. That’s the Atlantic Ocean, the world’s second biggest ocean. Only the Pacific Ocean is larger.
Sahara
Two thousand camels plod along a dried-up riverbed. The camels are being driven to market. Their destination is hundreds of miles away, in Egypt. The journey takes many weeks.
For as far as the eye can see, the camels and their herders are the only signs of life. This is the world’s largest desert. This is the Sahara.
SAHARA MEANS “DESERT”
The name Sahara comes from the Arabic word for “desert.” It is a vast region that extends across parts of ten countries in northern Africa. The Sahara stretches the entire width of the continent, from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Red Sea in the east.
Rivers
Have you ever taken a ride on a river? Some rivers flow slowly and gently. You can hop into a tube that looks like a big rubber doughnut and take a relaxing float down this kind of river.
Some rivers rush over rocks making foaming whitewater rapids. You can have a wild ride in a rubber raft on this kind of river. The kind of river you ride on depends on many things, including where the river is, what the water flows over, and how wide the river is.
Rivers that flow through flat plains are usually wider and deeper than rivers higher up. These rivers usually flow lazily and are good for floating down. Rivers in mountains often flow through narrow channels. Water moves swiftly through these channels.