Food, Shelter & Water • Topic 2 of 3

Shelter: Houses & Materials

Shelter is a basic need that protects us from heat, cold, rain and danger. EVS divides houses into two kinds by how strong and lasting they are. A kutcha house is made of mud, clay, straw, bamboo, thatch or unbaked bricks and is temporary; a pucca house is made of bricks, cement, concrete, stone and steel and is permanent. Houses change with climate and place, and CTET loves these regional links. In hot dry desert areas like Rajasthan, houses have thick mud walls, small windows and flat roofs to keep the inside cool. In heavy-rain or hilly areas the roofs are steep and sloping so rain and snow slide off; in Assam and other flood-prone or forested areas, stilt houses (houses on raised wooden poles) keep the home above water and animals. In very cold snowy regions some people build igloos from blocks of snow, and herders use tents that can be carried. Building materials are often local -- mud and thatch where they are cheap and available, stone in hilly areas, bamboo in the north-east. Animals also make homes: birds build nests, bees make hives, ants and rabbits dig burrows, spiders spin webs and bees and wasps build combs.

✅ Solved examples

1. Why do houses in hot desert regions like Rajasthan have thick walls and small windows?
Thick mud walls and small windows keep the heat out and the inside cool, protecting people from the very hot desert climate.
2. A house built of bricks, cement and concrete that lasts for many years is called a:
Pucca house -- a permanent, strong house, as opposed to a temporary kutcha house made of mud and straw.
3. In Assam, houses are often built on raised wooden stilts. The main reason is to:
Protect the home from floods (and from animals) by keeping the living area above the water level.
4. Why are roofs sloping (steep) in regions with very heavy rainfall or snowfall?
So that rainwater and snow slide off easily and do not collect on the roof, which would make it leak or collapse.

✏️ Practice — try these, take hints as needed

1. A house made of mud, straw and bamboo that is temporary is called a:
Opposite of pucca.
Easily damaged by rain.
Kutcha house
2. A dome-shaped house built of blocks of snow in very cold polar regions is an:
Made of ice/snow.
Used by people in the Arctic.
Igloo
3. A bird makes its home by building a:
Made of twigs and grass on trees.
Nest
4. In hilly and mountainous areas, the most commonly used local building material is:
Hard and strong, found in the hills.
Not bamboo.
Stone

📝 Topic test — 8 questions

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