Download Jason in the Desert

I.S. 234
Class ___________
Name_____________________________________
Date _____________________________________
English Class Work – Unfamiliar Vocabulary
Directions: Read the passage below and on loose-leaf paper, create the vocabulary chart.
Then use the different context clues to define the boldfaced words.
“Jason in the Desert”
Jason Stroh is a man who loves deserts. He works as a geographer, specializing in desert lands.
It was not what he thought he would be doing with his life.
Jason grew up in the wet, green lands of the Northeast. When Jason turned thirteen, his family
moved to Tucson, Arizona. Jason discovered a whole new world. At first he didn’t like it. The
extremes of temperature and the lack of shade made him uncomfortable and easily wounded causing
him to feel vulnerable and exposed to the elements. Things labeled as “rivers” were actually dry
ditches that filled with rain during the occasional deluge. The rain would heavily pour down, fill the
rivers and then quickly disappear. The water could be as dangerous as the lack of water. In fact,
everything seemed dangerous: the heat during the day, the cold at night, even the plants!
Little by little, Jason came to understand and respect his new environment. This desert wasn’t
anything like he had imagined. He had always had visions of stark, lifeless dunes of sand rolling
endlessly out to the horizon. The Sonoran Desert wasn’t bare at all. There was life everywhere you
looked; it was just a different kind of life. There were many different types of cactus. There
were birds of all sorts. There was even a strange type of pig called the javalina. The animals and
plants had all adapted themselves to live in an arid climate where little rain fell. Surprisingly, when
it did rain in the desert, it always smelled wonderful.
Jason learned that deserts tend to develop at about 30 degrees north or south of the equator.
In fact, the Sahara desert in Africa is at roughly the same latitude as the Sonoran. The moist,
warm air at the equator rises up into the atmosphere, cools, and moves north and south. By the
time it reaches the desert regions, this air has lost most of its precipitation, so very little rain falls
in these regions. The air cools and sinks toward the earth, where the sun warms it up again.
Because there are no rain clouds over the desert, the sun beats down on the ground all day long,
with no relief. And at night, the lack of clouds above and green plants below makes it difficult for
the ground to hold any heat. This is why the nights can be so cold in the desert.
Jason also discovered that people contribute to the process of desertification, making more
deserts than nature intended. People do this by grazing too many animals on the land or clearing
plants and trees away to make buildings. Plant life usually holds in the soil and keeps it from blowing
away in the wind. If the topsoil blows away, it becomes harder for new grass to grow. Without
plants to hold in moisture, the water quickly evaporates--disappears. Eventually, the climate can
change from warm and moist to hot and dry. It was this fact that made Jason want to study
deserts more, and learn how people can protect their environment better.
Now that Jason is an adult, all of the facts and figures about arid or dry climates seem pretty
basic and ordinary--especially compared with the satellite photography he looks at every day at his
job. But he can still remember the awe and amazement he felt when he first discovered the
Sonoran Desert. He now wonders what other place can give him this kind of surprise.