Fluency Unit 6 Assessment

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

important.

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.