Timbuktu from above

On the flight into Timbuktu, you can see that the town  is right on the edge of the desert. You can also see how dry it is, and how small. The population of Timbuktu is just 40,000. Do you know how many people live in your (nearest) town? Notice too that the streets are laid out in a grid-like form, as they are in many US cities.

Go down into the streets

Photograph reproduced by permission of Peter Moore and Sprites Junior School, Ipswich, UK. Visit their website and find out about their work on Mali at http://www.sprites.onweb.cx