Classroom lesson 路 Table Mountain馃嚳馃嚘 South Africa

Table Mountain

A flat-topped giant standing over Cape Town and the sea

Table Mountain rising flat-topped above Cape Town, seen across the sea

Photo 路 Wikimedia Commons

What is it?

Table Mountain is the famous flat-topped mountain that stands behind the city of Cape Town in South Africa. It is over 1,000 metres tall - about three times the height of the Eiffel Tower - and the top is so wide and level that early sailors thought it looked like a giant kitchen table.

Tell me more

Most mountains come to a sharp point at the top. Table Mountain doesn't. Its summit is a long, flat plateau almost 3 kilometres across - long enough that you could fit a small farm up there. The flatness is the reason for its name.

Quite often, a thin blanket of cloud pours over the top of the mountain and slides down the side. South Africans call this the 'tablecloth'. It happens when warm wet air from the sea is pushed up the mountain, where it cools and turns into cloud.

You can reach the top in two ways. The first is to climb up using one of the many walking paths - it takes a couple of hours and the views get more spectacular every step. The second is a cable car that gently spins as it climbs, so everyone inside gets a turn at the best window.

Table Mountain is home to its own little world of plants. The slopes are covered in a type of bushy plant life called fynbos, which has more different flowers in one small area than almost anywhere else on Earth. Scientists call this kind of place a 'biodiversity hotspot'.

In the classroom

Walk your class through this in 15 minutes.

Talk together

Discussion prompts

  1. 01Why might sailors hundreds of years ago have given the mountain its name? What do you call something that reminds you of something you know?
  2. 02How might a 'tablecloth' of cloud form, and why does it only pour down one side?
  3. 03If you could either walk up or ride the cable car to the top, which would you pick and why?
Try this

Classroom activity

On a big sheet of paper, draw your own 'Table Mountain' silhouette in the middle. Around it, label what you'd see if you climbed it - sea on one side, city on the other, flowers on the slopes, clouds on top. Then add your own school in the picture, drawn to roughly the right scale next to the mountain.

More about South Africa

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