A canal is a kind of ditch through which water flows.
It sounds pretty simple, so how important can a canal
be? When you think about it, however, canals are really
Thousands of years ago, humans learned how to grow
their own fruits and vegetables. These people needed
water to grow their crops. The easiest way to do this was
to dig a ditch, a canal, from a river or lake to the farm.
Water would flow from the river or lake to the farm. There
it would be used to grow the fruits and vegetables.
In today’s modern world, canals like these are still
used to grow food. The most common way to bring water
to farms is through canals. In places that are very dry,
like the Southwest of the United States, there are many
canals. If it were not for canals, the farmers in these dry
places could not grow the food we eat.
Another way that canals are important is for shipping.
Many of the things we use every day come from faraway
places, often across an ocean. There are two famous
canals that save a lot of travel time for these ships.
One is the Suez Canal in the Middle East. The other is
the Panama Canal in Central America. These canals are
shortcuts from one body of water to another.
Here’s how the Panama Canal saves time and money.
Suppose you wanted to ship something from San
Francisco to New York. Before the Panama Canal, you had
to sail around South America. After the Panama Canal,
you only had to go as far south as Central America. This
saved around eight thousand miles, which was equal to
several weeks of sailing time.