Navigating with the Kamal – Northern Hemisphere

With this activity, the students will learn how the Arabian sailors navigated at Sea many centuries ago, building and learning how to use a kamal, a simple tool to measure the elevations of stars and our position on Earth. This activity uses the example of the kamal to demonstrate how navigation at sea can be successful with some knowledge about astronomy combined with simple tools and some basic math. The students also learn some major aspects of the history of navigation, getting a feeling how it was in ancient times to find one’s way on the oceans.